


there is a better world (there must be)

by gwendolynflight



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Drug Dealing, F/M, Graphic Description of Self-Harm, Heroin, M/M, Mob AU, Murder, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Consensual Drug Use, OOC characters, Off-Screen Murder, Pie, Queliot endgame, Self-Harm, Self-Medication, Whump, arguably - Freeform, codeine cough syrup, cop!Julia, cop!Kady, covert Aquarius cross-over, especially q, fictional tropes mob, for certain values of happy, graphic descriptions of self harm, h/c, illegal drug use, low-key serial killer subplot, non-magic au, non-realistic Mob, noncon q/marina, prostitution?, q is high af all the time, queliot is fully and enthusiastically consensual, the real mob is bad you guys, witnessed murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2019-08-29 11:33:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16743202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolynflight/pseuds/gwendolynflight
Summary: Instead of magic, Quentin finds drugs.As a low-level seller, errand-runner, and prostitute for mob lieutenant Marina Andrieski, Quentin’s life kind of sucks, at least partly because he also snitches for his friend/police handler Julia Wicker. He stays high to deal with the stress, but when he meets mob boss Eliot Waugh, and girls in the neighborhood start to go missing, things get a little too real.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BigBadLittleRed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigBadLittleRed/gifts).



> This is a gift for BigBadLittleRed - we crafted the plot together, and I hope it's everything he was envisioning. Happy birthday, man!
> 
> I need to thank my beta extraordinaire, OneEyedDestroyer, aka the chainsaw beta. You make everything better, spooks.
> 
> Also thanks to ohmarqueliot and snippybookshrew, who were there when I needed to talk out plot or characterization beats.
> 
> Title taken from "Asleep" by The Smiths.
> 
> A lot of Quentin's characterization was inspired by a speed-watch of Aquarius, specifically Jason's character in that show.
> 
> This is two-thirds written and fully outlined, so I hope to have something like a regular update schedule.

 

 

Quentin Coldwater sat in his usual booth in the back of The Safehouse. He was a little buzzed, and watched the girls on the stage strut and dance through bleary eyes - he wasn’t really _watching_ them, watching them, more staring into space at the pretty colors and giggling to himself occasionally. His usual customers came by, a few an hour, and he lit up with some of them, the ones who asked or the ones he liked. A haze of smoke filled his booth and drifted a little beyond, making the colors diffuse through the thick atmosphere so that everything was distant and blurry.

Quentin was small time. He sold weed and pills, and the people who came into The Safehouse to buy from him were mostly really chill guys. As the sun set, he was smoking with Darren, a regular he thought of as a friend; they were shooting the shit, and Darren was saying something about how the universe worked. Quentin couldn’t really hear him over the music - Tiffany was doing her set, and she liked to dance to 80s hair metal - but he was smiling and nodding his head as Darren started babbling faster and faster.

Quentin took a swig of codeine cough syrup, leaning back as the familiar warmth spread through his belly and up his spine. Darren passed over the joint, and Quentin took a small drag; on stage, Tiffany did the thing where she slid all the way down the pole using just her thighs, and Quentin burst into delighted giggles. He handed the joint back to Darren, who leaned over and pushed Quentin’s hair behind his ear. Quentin grinned at him, and when Darren kissed him he went with it, Darren scooting down the bench and pressing Quentin against the back of it. Quentin let it wash over him, like the pot and the codeine, waves of warmth and easy, fun arousal.

Darren smelled like pot and nice cologne. Quentin thought he might work in finance or something awful like that - Darren was wearing a sharp gray suit, while Quentin was wearing his favorite sweater, green with a repeating pattern of red foxes. Darren's job didn’t matter, especially, Darren’s linen shirt soft under his fingers and the nice cologne turning heady with the warmth gathering between them.

A woman cleared her throat, and Quentin jerked back. Darren moved more slowly, and they looked up at the knife-thin brunette standing over them.

“My office,” Marina Andrieski said. “Five minutes.”

Quentin swallowed, absently wiping at his mouth. “Yeah, yes, I, I’ll --”

She didn’t wait for him to finish, whirling around so that her long, sleek ponytail swung behind her and striding toward her office. She was a small woman, all angles and bird-fine bones, but she moved like she was twenty feet tall.

Quentin started packing up his shit, shoving it all into his leather shoulder bag with his Fillory books. Darren started whining, “Aw, man, can’t you stay?”

“Not when the boss lady calls,” Quentin shrugged, scooting out of the booth. “Later, man.”

“Later,” Darren said, waving to him lazily as Quentin hurried toward Marina’s office.

As soon as he got through the door he knew he was in for a rough night. Marina was standing at her desk with her back to the door, and she snapped over her shoulder, “You’re late.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Quentin said, setting his bag down. “I lost track of time?”

“Shut up,” she said, “and get over here.” She turned and sat on the edge of her desk, a sleek modern thing, pulling her pencil skirt up to reveal that she wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Quentin scrambled over and dropped, cracking his knees against the carpet, thin over cold concrete. He immediately pressed in with his tongue the way she liked. She grabbed his hair with one hand, hard, and the edge of her desk with the other, her legs wrapping around his back. It instantly got hard to breathe, but he was used to working in these conditions, and kept lapping at her folds as she started to get wet. She groaned, and kicked his ribs with one heel. He flinched, but kept going. She was getting wetter, and it was getting all over his face, smearing over his chin. He would smell like her all day, he realized, and shuddered. He felt a little light headed. She tightened her grip on his hair and pressed his face to her cunt as she strained upward, thrusting against his mouth.

Quentin kept his hands on his thighs, clenched into fists just to remind himself to maintain posture. Getting her off would be faster, and easier, if he could use his fingers. But that wasn't allowed.

He flinched at the thought, at the memory of the last time he’d forgotten. Marina hissed at his inattention, kicking him again, hard enough to bruise. He gripped the seams of his pants, the scratchy material an additional security against moving.

Quentin sucked on her clit, flicking it with the tip of his tongue, and she came with a shout, her fingers tearing at his hair and her legs clamping around his neck. Quentin held still, shaking just a little. She took one deep breath, then another; he couldn’t breathe and she was luxuriating in air. Everything started to feel distant. Then she let go of Quentin's hair and pushed him away with one foot.

Quentin fell back onto the floor, coughing and gasping. With one hand he rubbed absently at the bruise left by her spiked heel, then wiped shakily at his chin.

He was hard. He usually was by this point. Marina liked things a certain way, and she’d trained him to meet those expectations. It didn’t matter that responding to her made him feel like something living had made its burrow in his stomach, twisting and turning discomfitingly when she made him hard by hurting him. He didn’t like it. Or he thought he didn’t like it, but. He did get hard every time. Maybe he was just a slut, like she said. The thing living in his stomach turned, scratched. He really wanted another swig of cough syrup.

Marina was unwrapping a condom, and she glanced at Quentin, still on the floor, and demanded, “Get your ass up here, I haven't got all night.”

Quentin scrambled up. She grabbed his shoulders and threw him across her desk. Its sharp edges banged against his shoulders, his hips. She prodded him until he scooted further back, and then climbed up on top of him, working open the fly of his jeans and sliding the condom onto his erection. He threw his hands up to grab the far edge of the desk, and held on as Marina started fucking herself on him.

He really couldn't think of it as something he was doing to her. He wasn't fucking her. It was something she was doing to him, and he didn't have a lot of say in how it went. His job was to stay hard until she was done, and to keep his eyes on hers until she said otherwise.

When he’d started selling, a few years back, it had been for Abigail, the old lieutenant. She’d demanded half his take, and he’d spent a few years living in an absolute dump, close to starving and closer to suicide. When Marina had made her move and taken over the racket, he’d almost thought it might be a step up. She’d offered everyone better rates, only twenty percent of gross. Modernizing the operation, she’d said. After his father ... When Quentin had starting dipping into his own stash and needed more leeway, she’d offered him an even better deal - paying for product with his body.

Every day he wished he hadn’t taken that deal.

The thing living in his belly writhed. She was riding him hard, slamming down onto his hips in a way he knew would leave bruises. He watched her electric blue eyes, too afraid to look away.

Small muscles moved in her face, micro expressions beneath her porcelain skin like cockroaches moving beneath wallpaper, and then she was working her clit with two circling fingers and clenching around him.

It lasted longer than the first, and Quentin thought it might be over.

But she just took a moment to catch her breath, and then she leaned over Quentin to rifle through her desk drawer. The pendent she never took off fell out of her shirt to swing freely in the air, and Quentin watched its small parabolic arc, the light glinting on the abstract silver curves. When she straightened up she was holding her favorite belt; he flinched, drawing a cruel smile across her red lips, and she started to ride him again as she leaned down and pressed the flat of the belt against his throat.

He remembered very little after that. Periods of blackness. A spark of pain, and he flailed into consciousness that faded again too quickly.

Then he was stumbling through the club. It had emptied out, and the cleaning crew was vacuuming the nasty carpets, wiping down the stage.

Quentin blinked around. His throat was sore; it would probably bruise. There was a bite mark above his left nipple. He wasn't hard anymore, but couldn't have said if he'd come or not. His stomach twisted uneasily. His leather bag was hanging on his shoulder, and he pulled out his bottle of cough syrup and took a swig, melting quickly into the codeine. Another day at work done, he told himself, and headed for the door.

* * *

In addition to letting Quentin deal drugs out of her strip club, Marina also sent him on errands pretty regularly, usually just to deliver messages. Pete, her main enforcer, called Quentin her little messenger boy, sometimes. Quentin liked that better than the other names Pete called him, so he didn't protest.

On this day, Marina had sent Quentin to a diner across town, a sort of retro 50s looking place with a neon sign reading EM’s Soda Fountain, and shiny chrome stripes bisecting the cream colored facade. Through the plate glass windows, Quentin could see into the L-shaped space, a soda fountain and counter fronted by a row of stools, and the bulk of the seating, booths and tables, off to the side.

Quentin smoothed the front of his jacket, burgundy with a large floral print, fussing a little with the scarf he’d thrown on to disguise the bruises on his throat; he took a quick sip of cough syrup, and opened the door.

Or tried to. It was locked, and Quentin gave it another tug before pulling back and checking the diner’s hours on the sign by the double doors, then his phone, then checking the other door - which opened easily. “They should unlock both,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “What if, people could.” He didn’t finish the thought, blowing through the open door and nearly running into someone.

Quentin flinched back, registering little more than _tall_ ; he looked up, and saw an incredibly attractive Indian man scowling at him. Quentin swallowed, and stepped to the side. The man closed the door he’d been holding, pointedly, and returned to his spot behind the counter. Only then did Quentin realize the man was wearing a uniform, like an old fashioned soda jerk. He smiled tentatively; the man scowled, and Quentin withered, edging away from the counter and toward the other seating around the side.

The diner was mostly empty. There were a couple of girls in private school uniforms drinking milkshakes in the window, one older guy at a booth along the side typing away at a Mac with all the self-importance of a writer, and a dark-haired man sitting in the very back booth. It was behind a half-wall, and tucked in the corner, so it seemed more private than the rest of the diner. The other side of the half wall could have fit another table, but instead featured two tall ferns and a rubber tree, the greenery standing out in the mostly white space.

Quentin had been given very specific instructions, and so he approached the dark-haired man with hesitant steps. He got closer, and saw that the dark hair topped a very handsome face, with aquiline features and sensuous lips over a strong jaw. Quentin swallowed, steeled himself. “Eliot Waugh?” he asked, hovering near the booth.

Eliot looked up, and frowned oddly. “Quentin … Coldwater?”

Quentin nodded hastily. Eliot looked him up and down, and Quentin shuffled his feet as he waited for Eliot’s assessment to end. Finally, Eliot shrugged, an elegant gesture, and Quentin felt safe to approach. “I have a message from Marina,” he said, scooting into the other side of Eliot’s booth and passing over a sealed envelope.

“I know,” Eliot said dryly, taking the envelope and breaking its seal with his thumb. “Marina called ahead.”

“Oh, right,” Quentin said, a giggle breaking out.

Eliot raised one brow. “Are you high, Quentin Coldwater?”

Quentin decided that he rather liked how Eliot said his name. “Not really, just a little.”

“Mmmhmm,” Eliot said, a sort of skeptical noise. He looked at the letter, then, and Quentin found himself content to just watch the expressions move across Eliot’s face. After a moment, Eliot sighed, then looked up. “You need a reply?”

Quentin nodded, still gazing at Eliot. He did this sometimes, becoming fixated on the nearest pretty thing.

Eliot didn’t seem to mind, just pulling out a pad of paper and a fountain pen. “I’ll need a few minutes, Coldwater. Why don’t you get yourself a shake, or a slice of pie?”

“Oh, okay.” Quentin patted his bag, an old reflex, and scooted out of the booth to wander over to the counter.

The tall man glowered at him, wiping slowly at a mug as if he’d like to strangle Quentin with the rag. Quentin, riding his wave of codeine, stammered, “Do you, um, Eliot said you have pie?”

The man sighed. “You gonna be coming around here?”

Quentin tilted his head. “I guess, probably.”

“Then it’s Penny.”

Quentin blinked, and startled fumbling in his bag for some change.

“No, my name is Penny, idiot.”

“Oh, um, I’m Quentin.”

“Yes, I know,” Penny said, his voice as dry as the desert. “What kind of pie do you want?”

“What do you have?”

“Apple, cherry, blueberry, and lemon meringue today,” Penny rattled off.

Quentin climbed onto a stool. “Oh, um, blueberry please.”

Penny scoffed at him, but wandered into the back, and returned a moment later to throw a plate in front of Quentin. There was a slice of pie on it, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The pie looked amazing, golden crust thick with fruit oozing across the plate, steam gently rising from the re-warmed pie. Quentin felt an unfamiliar twinge of appetite.

The first bite was heaven, the second bliss, and before he knew it, he’d finished the whole slice. He ran the fork across the plate, hoping for a few more crumbs, gathering up the last smears of filling.

Penny sighed, went into the back, and returned with another plate. “Might as well try the cherry,” he said dryly, dropping this plate in front of Quentin as violently as the first.

“Th, thank you,” Quentin stammered, pulling the plate a little closer. He glanced up at Penny, who just rolled his eyes, and went back to cleaning glassware.

The door opened behind Quentin, and a few more teenaged girls spilled through it, chattering and laughing as they ordered milkshakes. Quentin ate his pie, and watched them absently while Penny made their orders. The whir of the shake machine was loud in the small shop, and filled Quentin’s head with a sort of white fuzz.

When he came back to himself, the girls were all sitting in the windows, and Penny was watching him with an odd expression on his face. The cherry pie was gone, and Quentin, slightly queasy, remembered he hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning. Or dinner last night.

A hand slapped a sealed envelope onto the counter next to Quentin, making him jump. It was Eliot, who was smiling at him. “Enjoy the pie?”

“It was delicious,” Quentin said honestly, taking the letter and tucking it safely into his bag.

Eliot was still smiling, a gentle sort of smile. Quentin didn’t quite know what to make of it. “Tell Marina hello,” Eliot said then, and wiggled his fingers in farewell.

“Yeah, of course, I’ll …” Quentin stammered as he climbed down from the stool. Standing, he realized how tall Eliot was, taller even than Penny, and Quentin stared up at him. “I’ll, uh, see you next time?”

“Count on it,” Eliot said, and winked.

* * *

Quentin walked back to the strip club. It was only twelve blocks, and he wasn’t exactly excited to be there. He needed to pick up more product from Poppy, Marina’s drug supplying girlfriend, and he wasn’t looking forward to paying for it.

So Quentin was walking slowly, letting the pie settle, swigging from his bottle of cough syrup, when a figure leaned out of an alleyway and pulled him in.

He shrieked, and the figure clamped a strong, but delicate hand over his mouth. “Hush!”

Quentin leaned back. “Julia, what the fuck?”

Julia looked both ways and pulled him further away from the street. “I don’t have time for this, Q, what have you got for me?”

Julia had been a driven beat cop, looking to make detective, when she ran across her old friend Quentin selling dope. He’d been her snitch ever since, and now-Detective Julia Wicker came by almost weekly to demand more and more information for her burgeoning career. “Nothing new,” he had to admit, shoulders falling a little.

Julia huffed, her mouth twisting into a frown. “Nothing new? Q, it’s been weeks.”

“Well, I took a message to someone new,” he offered.

Julia perked up a little. “So Marina’s trying to branch out? Who was it?”

“I didn’t read the message,” Quentin said, wanting to take another swig of cough syrup but knowing she didn’t like it. “But it was to Eliot Waugh.”

Julia paled. She grabbed his arm right over a bruise. “She sent you to Eliot Waugh?”

“Yeah?” Quentin asked, most of his attention on trying not to flinch. “He seemed nice?”

Julia threw up both hands, turning away from him. “Quentin, Eliot Waugh works for the Librarian.”

“Oh,” Quentin managed. Julia had been trying to identify the Librarian for years. The person, or persons, who ran Manhattan, everything, drugs, prostitution, human trafficking, weapons. No one knew who it was, and people who tried to find out tended to vanish, or turn up dead. Making this case would make Julia’s career, or cost her life. “Julia, I don’t …”

“You should stay away from this,” she said firmly, facing him again.

He stopped, surprised. He’d expected her to tell him to go deeper, to get more information. “What?”

She shook her head. “It’s too dangerous.” She touched his arm. “Q, you’ve been … such a help, but. This is way above your pay grade.”

“Julia …”

“No. We focus on Marina.”

Marina was her path to Reynard, and Quentin had promised. Quentin looked down. Fiddled with the ends of his scarf. “Okay.”

She looked around again, as if she expected to be overheard. “Okay, good. You’d better get back.”

“Yeah, I’ll … I’ll see you later,” Quentin managed, and she gave him a brief smile before turning to vanish down the alley.

His hands were shaking. He went back out onto the street, and took another swig of cough syrup. The gulp drew less than a teaspoon, and he shook the bottle impatiently. There was no telltale liquid slosh; he tossed the empty bottle into a nearby trashcan before pulling a fresh one out of his bag, breaking the seal and downing a third of the bottle in one hasty swallow.

In just a few minutes, warmth began to spread through him, and his usual smile spread across his face. Ready to face Marina and Poppy again, he started walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pic used for the cover is from Jason's bathtub thot photo shoot, run through a few filters using Photoshop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin gets a chance to spend a little more time with Eliot, but back at Marina's, things are getting serious.

Poppy tended to like a quick, vanilla fuck when Quentin’s rent was due, so he was in and out with a bag full of fresh product within an hour, no new bruises to worry about. He’d dropped Eliot’s reply with Pete, and after cleaning up he retreated to his usual booth and waited for the first customer to wander by. Poppy had given him a few hundred Xanax, and he downed a couple with a swig of cough syrup while he idly watched the girls warming up. 

But he hadn’t seen more than a couple of buyers before Marina stormed out of her office, another sealed envelope in hand. “Quentin!” she yelled.

Quentin shrugged at Brittney, one of his regulars; she took her pills and darted toward the door. Then Marina was right there, looming over him, and Quentin blinked at her.

“Get this to Eliot,” she snarled, throwing the envelope at him.

“Today?”

“Right the fuck now!”

So he went.

He got an Uber to the diner, and rushed up the steps to the double glass doors and inside.

Penny was still behind the counter, and he raised both brows at Quentin. “Back for more pie?”

“Um, I, well,” Quentin babbled, gesturing meaninglessly as he rushed by the counter toward Eliot’s booth.

Eliot was sitting there, concentrating on a stack of files. Quentin stopped at the edge of the booth, jittering.

Eliot’s eyes lifted slowly. “Another message?”

Quentin nodded jerkily, and handed over the letter.

“You might as well sit down,” Eliot invited. “This won’t take long.”

Quentin scooted into the booth across from him, still feeling on edge. He watched Eliot reading Marina’s message for a minute, then snuck a swig of cough syrup. The jitters smoothed out, and he settled into the booth to wait for Eliot’s response. He stroked the strap of his bag, up and down, over and over, the leather smooth and thick beneath his fingers.

Eliot finished the letter, refolded it with a strange sort of calmness that suggested repressed anger. “My response is no.”

Quentin blinked. “Just, no?”

“No.” Eliot smiled thinly.

“Oh, okay,” Quentin shrugged, starting to slide along the booth.

“Well, you don’t have to rush back, do you?” Eliot asked, grabbing Quentin’s hand. His fingers were strong, his skin soft. Quentin stopped moving, licking his lips. “Stay for dinner.”

“I should be making sales,” Quentin said faintly.

“It’s early yet,” Eliot said. “Penny,” he called, and when Penny came over, he ordered two BLTs, with fries on the side, and two slices of cherry pie.

Quentin watched him do this, feeling his hand held in Eliot’s. Eliot was smiling at him, and Quentin’s heart stuttered in his chest. He was smiling back without really meaning to.

Penny said something scoffing, and left. 

“So what do you do for Marina?” Eliot asked.

“Oh, um, I just sort of rent a little space from her,” Quentin said, not sure how much Eliot knew about what Marina’s business really was. He was a snitch, but he wasn’t out spilling secrets to everyone.

“Ah, a businessman,” Eliot said archly, squeezing Quentin’s hand before letting go. Quentin was dismayed at the loss of contact, but then Penny set plates before them and Quentin sat back. 

“You want ketchup?” Penny asked, with disgust.

“Um, vinegar?” Quentin asked.

Penny sighed, but brought him a small glass bottle of malt vinegar. Quentin sprinkled it over his fries.

Eliot watched this with a sort of distance. “What are you doing?”

“It’s good,” Quentin said. “Want to try?”

Quentin offered the bottle of vinegar, but Eliot reached across and took one of Quentin’s fries, popping it into his mouth. A strange expression crossed his face, and he swallowed. “I might leave that to you.”

Quentin giggled, then ducked his head.

Eliot was smiling that gentle smile at him again. “That's a nice scarf,” Eliot said, raising one brow.

Quentin fingered one end of it sheepishly. “It's a good brand,” he defended, assuming that Eliot was making fun of his floral print jacket, or something.

“Honey, I wasn't being sarcastic. It is nice.”

Quentin glanced up at him from beneath his lashes.

“But wouldn't you be more comfortable if you took it off?” Eliot continued with a wink.

Quentin looked down. It was getting a little warm in the diner, but he didn't want Eliot to see his bruises, or ask about them. It was pathetic, and he wanted Eliot to like him. “I, um, it goes with the outfit?”

Eliot stared at him for a long moment, gaze inscrutable. Then he took a bite of his sandwich, and asked, “So what does your boyfriend think about you running errands for the Andreiskis?”

“Oh, I don't have a boyfriend,” Quentin admitted, gigging a little.

Eliot grinned sharply. “Your girlfriend, then?”

Quentin frowned thoughtfully. Marina was more of his boss. “No, no girlfriend either.”

“A cute little thing like you?” Eliot purred. “Someone might have to just snap you up.”

Quentin stared at him. A shiver ran up his spine. “Are you, um, you must have lots of boyfriends. Or girlfriends, or whatever,” he stammered.

Eliot reached out and touched his chin with one finger, lifting his gaze so their eyes could meet. “Nary a one, Quentin Coldwater.”

“Really? Cause that seems … unlikely.”

“Let's just say my little black book just vanished.”

“Oh, um.” Quentin didn't know how to take that, exactly, and ate some more of his BLT.

Eliot leaned back, and said, “I'm not trying to pressure you into anything. I just find you very cute.”

Quentin tilted his head. “You don't really seem like a mobster.”

Both of Eliot's eyebrows flew up. “Quentin, are you saying you think I'm involved in illegal activity?” 

Quentin dropped his sandwich. “No, wait, I just meant -”

“I'll have you know this is a perfectly legitimate establishment, what do you take me for?”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean, I mean. Marina said …”

“Oh, well if Marina said,” Eliot returned, and his tone was still outraged but there was something mischievous in the crinkle of his eyes.

Quentin squinted at him. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Would I do that?” Eliot asked, very ice wouldn't melt and innocent.

“I think, I mean,” Quentin huffed, and leaned forward. “You are the Eliot Waugh who works for the Librarian, right?”

Eliot tweaked his nose, grinning. “You got it, doll.”

Quentin pulled back, a giggle escaping him. “That was kinda mean.”

“I'm afraid you'll find that to be true of many mobsters,” Eliot said airly, making Quentin giggle again. 

Feeling good, Quentin reflexively took a swig of cough syrup - then froze. What if Eliot didn't like it?

But when Quentin looked up, Eliot was all nonchalance, picking at his fries as if he hadn't noticed. Quentin relaxed a little, and Eliot gave him a smile like handing over a reward.

“So what else do you have in that bag of yours?” Eliot asked.

“Oh, um, stuff,” Quentin said, not sure if he should mention his stash to Eliot or not. “Did you want to buy anything?”

“I was just asking.”

“Oh.” Quentin deflated a little, then perked up. “I have one of my favorite books.”

“Ooh, I like a reader. Which book?”

“Um, Fillory? And Further?” Now that he thought about it, this hadn’t been the best idea.

“The children’s books?”

“Yeah …”

“Well, tell me about them. What do you like about them?”

Quentin lit up. “It’s about these kids, siblings, they go through this clock to another world …”

They ate, and talked. Quentin told Eliot more about himself than he’d planned, and learned very little in return but was utterly charmed by everything Eliot said, and before he knew it he’d devoured his sandwich, all of his fries and most of Eliot’s, part of Eliot’s sandwich, and another two pieces of pie. 

Three hours had slipped away, and it was fully dark. Quentin fumbled for his bag, waved goodbye to Eliot, and called another Uber back to the strip club.

* * *

It was a little early, still, for strip club hours, and Quentin made his way through the sparse crowd to his usual booth. Miley was waiting, her curly red hair jittering with the beat, and he slid in next to her hurriedly. 

“Oh my god, Q, where were you?” she whined, pressing her thigh all along his.

“Out on an errand for Marina, you know how it is,” he shrugged, reaching into his bag. “What do you need, Miley, I just got new product in.”

“Uppers, anything,” she said, passing him a wad of cash.

He handed over some pills, and she popped three of them before waving a waiter over to order a drink. He watched, slightly fascinated, sure the pills must be getting gritty and chalky in there. “Do you want some water?”

She shook her head, and he shrugged to himself, taking another Xanax just to keep the floaty feeling going. He looked around for Pete, wanting to pass the message off to Marina’s enforcer, but he didn’t see Pete anywhere, or Poppy, he could’ve passed the message to Poppy. But the club was strangely bereft of upper management, and after each search Quentin retreated to his booth, took another pill, sold a few more ounces of weed, and worried more about how Marina would take the delay.

A few hours passed that way, and the longer Quentin went without reporting to Marina, the more anxious he got about it, and the more Xanax he took. 

By the time Pete came around, Quentin was a little high.

“Hey, man,” he slurred.

Okay, a lot high.

Pete grabbed his arm and forced him up. “C’mon, Marina wants you.”

Quentin swayed against him, fumbling with his bag. Pete shook him, once, and started dragging him through the club. It was a little more crowded, now, and Quentin got flung against strangers and dragged through clumps of jeering men, Pete’s face impassive as a hatchet the whole time.

They got to Marina’s office, and Pete just opened the door and flung him inside. Quentin stumbled almost into the middle of the room, and swayed, looking at Marina through bleary eyes. “I couldn’t find you,” he mumbled.

Marina was sitting behind her desk, and she glared at him. “Where’s my reply?”

“He didn’t, didn’t write anything, just, uh, said to tell you no.”

“No?” There was something dangerous about her voice as she repeated the word. 

“Yep, just, uh, just no.” Quentin squinted, ran a hand through his hair. “He said you’d know what that meant.”

Marina smiled, then, and even through the haze of drugs Quentin felt a pang of worry.

“Oh, I know exactly what he meant,” she snarled, and stood up.

Quentin shrank in on himself. “I'm sorry, I didn't, um, I don't …” he stammered, stumbling back as she stalked forward. 

“Today did not go well,” Marina said, and Quentin knew what that meant. She slapped him.

The blow was hard enough to make him stumble. His hand flew up to cradle his stinging cheek. “Straighten up,” she demanded, and when he did, she slapped him again. 

This time he fell, and she kicked him hard in the stomach, rolling him over and driving the air out of him in a loud _woosh_. She kicked him again, the pointed toe of her spiked pumps stabbing him in the ribs once, again. He curled in on himself, and she let out a ferocious noise of frustration.

“Get up, you useless piece of shit,” Marina ground out. 

Quentin scrambled to his feet and stood before her, swaying lightly and clutching his aching ribs. Marina glared at him for a moment that seemed to stretch out like taffy; when she hit him again, it was with a closed fist, and he didn't get back up. 

She stood over him, and he cowered until the vicious light in her eyes changed, turned into something else. She knelt over him, and he didn’t move. She straddled him, and he pulled his arms up, close to his chest in a protective gesture. She unbuttoned his pants and pulled his cock out, worked it to hardness and fitted a condom on with the ease of long practice, and rode him until she came.

Quentin’s face hurt with a sharp pain, his ribs ached and groaned beneath her weight. Marina watched every flinch as that light in her eyes just got worse, more satisfied, more cruelly pleased. She rolled her hips, and Quentin gasped, throwing his head back. She dug her nails into his ribs, sharp points of pain all up and down his sides. He swallowed his groan. She clenched around him rhythmically, eyes boring into his, drinking in every small twitch, every reaction. Every wince. 

He knew that his pain turned her on. He’d tried not showing it, but she’d only done worse until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. 

There was no benefit to being brave.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia makes some assumptions; Quentin and Eliot get a little flirty.

Quentin staggered home sometime after midnight, sore and wet with sweat, Marina satisfied as the cat that got the canary. He’d never really understood that phrase until now. Of course the cat was satisfied. He’d never thought about what it meant for the canary.

The streets were never empty, this was New York, but he also didn’t see many people as he made his slow way to his apartment, the two blocks seeming to take forever, one arm hugging his leather bag and the other wrapped around his ribs. 

He lived in a fifth floor walk-up studio apartment with drafty windows and the original hardwood floors, battered and worn thin. His lights were bare bulbs, and he squinted as he turned them on. His couch, rescued from behind a dumpster, beckoned. He crossed his barren kitchen in two steps, dropped his bag, and collapsed onto his favorite blanket. 

Sometimes he thought about what his life might have been like, if things had been different. He’d been someone once, or on his way to being someone. 

But even the memory of his old life, of tests and problem sets and interviews and the hospital, filled him with an echo of his old anxiety. Fingers trembling, he downed a bottle of cough syrup, curled up on his couch, and thought about nothing until he fell asleep.

* * *

Quentin was awakened, too early, by a pounding on the door. He sat up, blinking in the too-bright light streaming in through the film of dirt on his windows. “What the hell?” he yelled.

“Open up,” called a voice with authority.

Quentin groaned, fell off the couch still wrapped in his favorite blanket and shuffled to the door. When he opened it, Julia stood impatiently on the other side.

When she saw his face, though, she froze. “Oh my god, Q, what the hell happened?” 

“Nothing.”

She reached up to carefully touch his brow. It hurt, and Quentin flinched back. She looked … sad. “This isn't nothing, Q.”

Quentin couldn't quite meet her eyes. “Doesn't matter,” he said, and shuffled back to the couch.

She followed him in, and when he just slumped back onto the ratty cushions, she walked too quickly into his bathroom, and returned with his somewhat understocked first aid kit. She knelt beside the couch and started cleaning him up, alcohol in the cuts making him hiss and flinch, then ointment and bandages.

Partway through, she asked, “Were you made?”

“What?”

“Did someone figure out you're a snitch? Q, I need to know if you should be in witsec.”

“No, it was.” He shook his head. “I was late, with a message. That's all.”

Julia sat back. “Marina had her goons beat you up for that?”

And he realized she didn't know Marina had done this, and he felt an almost overwhelming rush of relief. “It's no big deal, Jules.”

Her expression softened at the old nickname, and she placed the final bandage with care. “There, all fixed up.” She sighed then. “If they're this brutal about your timing, Q, you have to be more careful.”

“I will,” he said hastily, before she could think to look beneath his clothes and notice the bite marks. “I'll be more careful.”

Julia looked at him sadly. “I worry about you, you know.” She stood, pacing the small space with her arms wrapped around her middle. “You should be in a hospital.”

“It's not that bad,” Quentin said, trying to be reassuring. 

Julia huffed. “That's not what I meant.”

Quentin went cold all over. “Jules, no.”

“You're not well,” Julia said, not softening this time. “Look at yourself! You need treatment, therapy -”

Quentin sank into a paralyzed huddle. She kept talking, but her voice seemed terribly far away, and he couldn't make out the words. Just noise, and his own fear. “Please,” he whispered. 

Julia knelt beside him, tried to take his hand. He fought her, curling in on himself. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, or like he was breathing but the oxygen wasn’t getting to his lungs. He was still whispering “Please, please.”

She sank back onto her heels, and said, “Okay, no hospital. Not for that. I promise.”

Quentin fixed her with a pleading stare. “Promise?”

She'd broken other promises, but he would accept this one. He had to. 

“Not for this,” she said again, holding out one hand, her smallest finger crooked. “Pinky promise.”

Quentin hooked his pinky in hers, relieved tears trickling past his nose. Julia smiled, and she was trying to reassure him, he could tell. But in the moment, all he could see was how very small she was. 

She'd promised to protect him a few times before. She hadn't managed it yet. 

Quentin knew he was fucked up. Knew that his brain sort of broke sometimes, and that his solution of getting high to deal with it wasn't healthy. 

Quentin also knew what it was to be in the hospital for his broken brain, and he'd do his best to die before going back. 

Julia said a few other things that he didn't listen to, and then left. 

After another small nap, Quentin levered himself slowly slowly off the couch and shuffled into his bathroom. Lifting his shirt, he located each bruise, purple and black divots across his ribs, a few places swollen and puffy. Nothing broken. He had some arnica cream, for bruises, and he slathered it liberally over every bruise he could see.

The smell of the cream stung his nose. He worked himself into a fresh T-shirt. The cream soaked into it almost instantly, and it became damp and clammy. He shivered unhappily. 

He dug through his leather bag, and pulled out his copy of _Fillory and Further_ , two Xanax, and a fresh bottle of cough syrup for later. 

He was supposed to be at the strip club around 5. He couldn't face it. He made a small pile of pillows, curled up with his favorite book and his bottle of cough syrup, and tried to forget his entire life.

* * *

When Quentin was supposed to be going to the strip club, he found himself wandering over to the diner. Its bright neon lights shone like a beacon in the soft dark of early evening, and he pushed through the glass door.

Penny was standing at the counter, and Quentin ducked his head as he went past. “What the hell happened to you?” Penny called, but Quentin kept moving.

Eliot was sitting at his booth in the back. He was doing paperwork, stacks of folders around him. When he looked up and saw Quentin, his eyes widened, and he partly stood up from the bench. “Quentin, what happened?”

Quentin’s eyes widened. “Um, I, there was, I was mugged?”

Eliot came around the table and took Quentin’s shoulders in his hands, carefully. Quentin felt a shiver move down his spine. “Are you okay?” Eliot asked.

Quentin’s gaze fixed on the bridge of Eliot’s nose. “A little sore.”

Eliot took him into his arms, and pressed Quentin to his chest, and hugged him gently, so gently. His big hands swept up and down Quentin’s back, not even disturbing the bruises. “Oh, honey,” he said. His voice was very deep, and Quentin pressed his ear to Eliot’s chest. “Did they get your product? Are you in trouble?”

“I, uh, someone came along, and he ran off. I’m okay.”

Eliot stroked his back again. “That’s good, that’s good.”

Quentin leaned further into Eliot’s hold. He was feeling sleepy again, and part of him wished he were still at home but most of him didn’t ever want to leave Eliot’s arms. He made a sound, and Eliot pulled back a little.

“Are you tired? Hungry? Come over here,” Eliot said, drawing Quentin to his side of the table and helping Quentin onto the bench. Eliot slid in after him, and Quentin found himself pressed between Eliot and the wall, Eliot between Quentin and the world. Eliot turned himself partly toward Quentin, and patted his chest. Quentin hesitated for a moment, then leaned into Eliot's side, Eliot's arm settling around his shoulders, and he leaned his head against Eliot’s chest, and just breathed.

Eliot rubbed his arm with one hand, and picked up a folder with the other, and they sat like that for a while. Eliot murmured something occasionally, moved a folder or set it down to write something. But his other arm stayed around Quentin’s shoulders, and Quentin sank into a peaceful sort of reverie.

After a while, Eliot ordered food, and when it came, he prodded Quentin until he started eating.

Quentin realized he hadn’t had a swig of his cough syrup since he’d arrived. He felt pretty level, but took a mouthful. Eliot had moved some of the folders, and was eating his own meal, studiously not watching Quentin getting high. Quentin started picking at his food, eating a fry; it was already doused in vinegar, and he paused. He looked at the fry, then tried to look around Eliot at Penny.

“Something wrong?” Eliot asked.

“No, uh, everything’s fine,” Quentin said slowly. He ate another fry, and then approached tonight’s sandwich, chicken club. “This is really good,” he said around a mouthful.

“We have an amazing cook,” Eliot said proudly. “He’s high all the time, but he gets it done.”

“Does he make the pies?”

“Do you want some pie?” Eliot asked. “Something sweet?”

Something about that made Quentin blush. “Yeah?”

Eliot leaned closer, closer, and Quentin held his breath in anticipation.

Something banged and clattered on the table behind him; Quentin sprang back, and pressed himself against the wall.

It was Penny. He’d thrown two plates of pie onto the table, and he was glaring at them. 

Eliot shooed Penny away with a look. “I already ordered pie,” he explained.

Quentin’s heart was still going a little fast. “Oh, what kind?”

“Strawberry-rhubarb, today.”

“Yum.”

Eliot glanced at him, smiled. “We can always return to the other matter … later.”

“Later, yeah.” Quentin swallowed, wondering what the other matter was, exactly. If it was what he hoped. He licked his lips. “Later, good.” He pulled a plate of pie over to him. His hands were shaky. 

Eliot put a hand on his. “Hey, I mean it. No rush.”

Quentin took a bite of the pie. It was as perfect as the others, flaky crust rich with butter, the rhubarb a zing of acid on his tongue. “Sometimes I want to rush,” he said, glancing at Eliot.

Eliot smiled, a slow, almost satisfied expression. “Is that so?”

Quentin nodded, blushing a little. But then he remembered all the bite marks, and bruises, and fixed his gaze on his slice of pie. “Um. But I’m pretty banged up.”

“Right, the mugging,” Eliot said, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Maybe I should walk you home.”

“No, I’m okay, I’ll be okay,” Quentin said hastily. What if Eliot wanted to come up, make out, get naked, see his wounds ... “I’ll get an Uber, be more careful.”

Eliot reached out a hand and Quentin thought that for a lot of people he might have flinched, but Eliot’s hand approaching didn’t spark fear in him. It sparked something else, and then Eliot was tucking Quentin’s hair behind his ear, and saying, “I certainly hope so. I rather like this pretty face.”

Quentin’s mouth was dry, and he felt hot. “Oh, okay,” he stammered.

Eliot pulled back. “Finish your pie, Coldwater.”

But he was smiling as he said it, and Quentin hummed happily to himself as he worked through the rest of the meal, and Eliot did a little more reading. Happy just to be next to Eliot, even while Eliot wasn’t paying him any attention.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot shows off Quentin to Margo, like a cat with a freshly killed mouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for commenting, it means a lot! ^_^

Quentin had to go back to the strip club eventually. He crept inside like he was robbing the place, and shimmied into his booth as if he’d been there all day. None of his regulars were waiting, and he didn’t see management, the club as weirdly bereft as the day before, so he thought for a moment he’d gotten away with it.

Then Pete stepped out of the shadows and nearly gave him a heart attack. “Jesus!” Quentin gasped, clutching his chest.

“Where the fuck were you?” Pete asked, leaning over him, his narrow face like a hatchet. 

“At home,” Quentin said, tone snappish. “Recovering.”

Pete looked him up and down, sneering. “You look like shit.”

“I know, thanks,” Quentin said, hiding a flinch at Pete’s sharp tone.

“Marina wants you,” Pete said, then walked off toward the bar.

Quentin stared after him for a long minute. He swallowed down some cough syrup; the taste of fake cherry flavoring hit the remnants of the strawberry pie in a viscerally unpleasant way that made him shudder. He realized he hadn’t had any codeine in a while, a few hours maybe. He took a Xanax, washed the chalky pill down with a raspberry vodka he snagged off a passing waitress, everything hitting his stomach in a rush of acid and regret, and just hoped it would all kick in before Marina got started.

As soon as he entered her office, though, things seemed different. Marina wasn't alone, for one. There was another woman in the room; she was just a little shorter than Quentin, with wildly curly hair that cascaded down her back. She could have been one of the dancers, except she was wearing combat boots, cargo pants and an olive-colored Army jacket.

“Hi,” Quentin said tentatively, waving at her.

The woman scowled at him. Quentin shrank back against the door.

“New bodyguard,” Marina said dismissively, lighting a cigarette. 

The smell of the smoke hit Quentin in a wave of longing. “Can I …”

Marina looked at him oddly, but tossed the pack over. Quentin pulled one out and lit it, drawing in a lungfull before tossing the rest back. Marina caught the pack in one hand like a claw, blew out a puff of smoke, and said, “Get over here.”

Quentin glanced at the bodyguard nervously, but went to Marina. She grabbed his chin in that same claw grip, turning his face from side to side. “You don't look that bad,” she said after a minute.

“Ribs hurt,” he muttered.

“Hm, well.” Marina let go of his face and he fought the urge to take a step back. Her pale blue eyes tried to pierce his; he stared at the bridge of her nose, barely daring to blink. “Maybe a night or two off,” she said, then turned abruptly back to her desk.

“Really?” Quentin squeaked, but Marina just waved a careless hand, dismissing him. 

Quentin darted back out of the room, his heart rabbiting in his chest. 

“No use tonight?” Pete said.

Quentin fell back against the door. “Jesus Christ!”

“She'll get rid of you soon enough,” Pete continued, then walked off, like he hadn't just been lurking outside Marina’s office during what he thought would be sex time. Creep, Quentin thought, rubbing the strap of his bag.

But Quentin couldn't be too unhappy about it, because not only had Marina not missed his absence, she was giving him a few days off. Quentin made his way back to his booth, grinning to himself as he finished his cig and slid back into the familiar bench seat. One of his regulars was moving through the crowd, and he could stay here all night. 

It was Darren, the maybe-financier, and he slid into the booth and said, “Damn, what happened to you?”

Quentin grimaced. “Got mugged,” he lied, reaching into his bag. “Usual?”

“Shit, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. He didn’t get anything.”

Darren touched his cheek, and Quentin blinked at him. “No, I mean, are _you_ okay?”

Quentin felt warm. “I, um, a little sore.” It didn’t feel like too shameful a confession, for some reason.

“You should try a bath,” Darren suggested, before pulling back. “I’m throwing a party this week, can you load me up?”

“Yeah, sure thing.” Quentin pawed through his bag, pulling out everything he thought he could spare. Darren always paid in cash, never tried to wheedle freebies out of him, and was a great kisser. He could always just get a little more from Poppy if he needed to. “This enough?”

Darren looked over the assortment of baggies, then handed over a thick fold of cash, pecked Quentin on the cheek, and took off.

Quentin looked around the club. He felt warm and level from all the codeine he’d taken earlier, and thanks to Darren he’d made his quota. So he went home.

* * *

Quentin’s apartment was a shithole. He might’ve liked to try a bath like Darren had suggested, but his place didn’t have a bathtub, just a shower. Quentin peeled out of his shirts and rubbed in some more arnica cream on his many, darkening bruises. The smaller ones on his ribs, from the viciously pointed toes of Marina’s shoes, were almost black. Most were purple. They would be a rainbow of greens, blues and yellows in a few days. 

For a moment he thought how nice it might be to have someone’s help with shit like this, caring for his wounds, maybe even keeping him from getting hurt in the first place.

He shook off the thoughts as useless - historically speaking, help from others had been more _hospital and misery_ than _nice_ \- then crawled into his softest hoodie, wrapped himself in most of his blankets, and made a nest on his couch. From there, he watched the _Fillory and Further_ show on Netflix, the fairly awful one from the 90s, and drank cough syrup until he fell asleep.

* * *

There were no new messages on Quentin’s phone the next morning. Nothing from Julia about his snitching duties, nothing from Marina about coming in to the club. 

Maybe he really did have the day off.

With a burgeoning sense of hope, Quentin took a cool shower, ate a bowl of cereal (dry, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d bought milk), put on his favorite vintage Hawaiian shirt and his softest hoodie, and walked to Eliot’s diner. 

From his apartment it was only ten blocks, and the morning was on just the right side of warm. He walked slowly, swigging from his bottle of cough syrup a couple of times, just enough for the faintest buzz. He already had something like a buzz at just the thought of seeing Eliot again, of sitting near him and listening to his deep, rich voice.

There was a strange movement out of the corner of his eye. Quentin paused, looked around. 

The streets were fairly crowded, at least a dozen people on his side of the street and more across, about average for this time of day. A few people were looking at him, but more because he’d just stopped in the middle of the sidewalk than anything else. Quentin frowned, his shoulders hunching in a little. But he didn’t see anything, and he shook it off.

This was the earliest he’d ever made it to EM’s, and he bounded up the stairs and through the unlocked door with an eager feeling of anticipation rising in him.

Penny was behind the counter, which was starting to seem normal. He looked at Quentin, snorted, and said, “You still look like shit.”

Quentin grimaced at him, and slid past the counter to find Eliot. 

Eliot was sitting at his booth, and Quentin sidled up to him. Eliot looked up, saw Quentin, and smiled. “Hey, there. Isn’t it a little early for you?”

“Not really,” Quentin lied, smiling back. “I just, um, I have the day off, so I thought I’d see if you were busy.”

Eliot closed the folder in front of him firmly. “Not at all. Have you had breakfast?”

“No,” Quentin lied again (though this was hardly a lie, dry cereal couldn’t possibly count as a real breakfast). 

Eliot slid out from his booth and put an arm around Quentin’s shoulders. “Then we’ll have to remedy that at once.”

He led Quentin over to the counter, and they sat side by side while Penny brought them plate after plate of food, Belgian waffles with real whipped cream and sliced strawberries, perfectly crispy bacon, scrambled eggs so fluffy it was like eating a cloud, toast dripping with butter, all served with fresh-squeezed orange juice and the best coffee Quentin had ever tasted. He told Penny so, and Penny looked just the slightest bit less grumpy afterward. 

He and Eliot talked. Mostly Quentin told him about the Fillory books, and Eliot sat on his stool, leaned his elbow on the counter and his cheek on his hand, and watched Quentin like he didn’t ever want him to stop talking. Not many people looked at Quentin this way, and Eliot’s gentle, open gaze made Quentin feel something he couldn’t quite name. So he kept talking, motioning with his hands and cutting glances to Eliot to see how he was taking the flow of words, and every time seeing that patient, almost delighted stare. 

As they finished eating, Penny clearing away stacks of plates, Eliot leaned forward, and asked, “Hey, do you want to go somewhere?”

Eliot’s tone was flirtatious, and Quentin knew better than this, knew better than to go off alone with some guy, but Eliot was really fucking hot, so he stammered, “Sure.”

Eliot stood, pulling on his suit jacket. Quentin, in his jeans and hoodie, looked like a teenager next to Eliot’s elegant three-piece suit. But Eliot didn’t seem to care, tucking Quentin’s arm in his and leading him out front to a sleek, black car. There was someone already sitting behind the wheel, a woman with ash blonde hair wearing a sort of uniform like a butler. Eliot opened the back door for Quentin.

Quentin climbed into a roomy leather bench seat, Eliot sliding in after him. The door closed with an authoritative sort of clunk, dampening all noise from the street. There was a privacy screen dividing their compartment from the driver. Eliot opened a compartment, revealing a variety of drinks in traditionally patterned crystal decanters. It was, in short, the fanciest, most tastefully elegant car Quentin had ever seen. 

Eliot must have told the driver where to go earlier, because Quentin never noticed them exchange words. The car just pulled away from the curb, engine thrumming like some powerful beast, and they rode through the city as if on air. Quentin accepted a drink, and they sipped aged whiskey as Eliot commented on passing landmarks. Eliot told stories about things that had happened a hundred years ago, two hundred, as if he were a vampire telling Quentin about events he’d witnessed. There was a gossipy flavor to it. Quentin watched him, or more accurately the side of his face, wondering how he knew these things, wondering why he found Quentin worth his time. He drank a little more to quiet that line of thought. The whiskey went right to his head, and as they rounded a corner, Quentin leaned forward and kissed Eliot’s cheek.

“Oh, really?” Eliot said, turning to face him.

Quentin could feel that his cheeks were red, but he nodded, and Eliot reached over and pulled Quentin into a kiss.

Quentin nearly spilled his whiskey, giggling and breaking the kiss. Eliot took the glass out of Quentin’s hand, tossed it carelessly aside, and put a hand, big and square, on the back of Quentin’s neck. He held Quentin in place like that, fingers playing in Quentin’s long hair, and he kissed Quentin slowly, like he was being careful about it. Quentin pressed closer, so that their thighs were pressed together and he didn’t have to strain his neck so much. He didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, his knuckles brushing the corner of Eliot’s jaw, the side of his neck. He was a little afraid to touch. Eliot kissed Quentin’s neck and jaw and he pulled Quentin’s hair a little and Quentin moaned in Eliot’s ear.

When the car stopped, they were in front of a club. It was sleek and dark-looking even in the daylight. Like the Safehouse, it occupied the first floor of a larger building. Unlike the Safehouse, it took up the entire first floor. It was called The Cottage, which Quentin didn't quite understand, the sign tasteful and subdued and so far from the neon blinking Safehouse marquee that it barely seemed like a club at all.

Eliot climbed out of the car first, and offered Quentin a hand as he slid across the wide bench seat. Quentin took the hand, and felt … special, important, as Eliot helped him onto the sidewalk in front of the club. “Where is this?” Quentin asked, taking in the tasteful sign and the ritzy neighborhood.

“One of our properties,” Eliot said, not particularly proudly but as if he knew his club to be special. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”

He then tucked Quentin’s arm into his, and they walked into the club. 

Inside it was dark; subdued lighting emanated from elegant sconces, set in walls covered with mahogany wainscotting and what Quentin thought might be actual fabric, not wallpaper, and he drifted closer to one wall, wanting to touch it. Eliot drew him closer, though, so Quentin squashed the impulse. There was a hostess stand, like at a normal restaurant, but the stand looked more like an antique, and there was a young man in a sharp suit behind it, his expression welcoming. Eliot nodded to him, and they sailed past, further into the club, without having to leave their names or anything. 

Through a short hallway, down a half-flight of stairs, the club opened out into its main room. There was a low stage at the far end, with a grand piano and a mic stand and enough room for a four-piece orchestra, though it was empty now. In front of the stage, small round tables with white linen cloths and formal place settings surrounded a square pool with a small fountain at its center. The club was quiet enough that Quentin could hear the flow of the water, a distant murmuring that blended with low voices and low music piped in through discrete speakers. Further from the stage, larger tables were isolated in their own alcoves, and while Quentin tried to peer into a few, he couldn't make out how many people were behind the latticed screens and curtains, much less any greater detail. 

Eliot led him to one of these alcoves and then inside, and Quentin slid into a booth across from a petite woman in an expensive looking black suit, her dark hair tumbling down in waves over soft brown skin and an eyepatch traced in glittering gold thread that matched the intricate embroidery on her suit. She raised the eyebrow above the patch at Quentin, as if daring him to comment. He waved to her awkwardly.

She looked at Eliot. “This is him?” She looked back at Quentin. “He's not that cute.”

“Margo,” Eliot said, still standing over them, “this is Quentin.” In spite of her rather cool assessment, Eliot still sounded excited to introduce Quentin to her. Very excited. There was something in his tone, almost like he'd invented Quentin and was showing him off.

Quentin waved again, sinking into the soft leather seat. He was still rather high. Inside the alcove, the air felt close, intimate. Like there was no one else in the whole club but them.

Margo looked him over again, her gaze assessing. “Well, I suppose he’ll do,” she said, though for what, she didn’t specify. Quentin tried not to let that worry him.

Eliot slid into the seat next to him, so that both of them were across from Margo, and he put his arm around Quentin’s shoulders. “I think he’s perfect.”

This was starting to concern Quentin. “For what?” he asked, his voice small.

“Don’t worry about it,” Margo said, though she was smiling in a slightly mysterious way.

He frowned. “That doesn’t really help me not worry.”

“Bambi,” Eliot said to Margo, chiding her but not in a serious way.

Quentin persisted, “No, but really, what … what are you planning?

“Maybe he should be worried,” Margo said archly.

“Well, you’re not helping,” Eliot teased her.

“Guys?”

They both started laughing, probably at him. Quentin shrank in on himself, looking between them anxiously. Eliot forced himself to stop laughing, visibly tugging on the corners of his mouth, and refocused on Quentin.

“She’s a bit of a matchmaker, my Margo,” Eliot said, tweaking a bit of Quentin’s hair, a playful tug that sent a pleased zing down Quentin’s spine, before pulling away.

“Oh,” Quentin said, looking at Eliot’s softening smile, at Margo’s whole air of mystery, but seeing in a slightly new light. “Oh!”

“Okay, fine,” Margo said, rolling her eye. “He’s fucking adorable.”

“I knew you’d like him,” Eliot said smugly.

Quentin tried to hide his blush behind his hair, feeling him face grow even hotter as that just made them laugh at him again. He was starting to feel that anxiety rise up in him again, the thing in his stomach moving, twisting. They were still giggling together, and he fumbled his bottle of cough syrup out of his bag in a desperate grab for some sangfroid. 

“Quentin,” Eliot said then, touching his arm gently. “Doing okay?”

Quentin nodded quickly, still hiding behind his hair. He didn’t want Eliot to ask again, didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Wanted to become invisible if he could manage. He took a swallow, sort of sneakily, as if he could hide it at this distance.

“It’s okay, puppy,” Margo said, her voice surprisingly gentle. He peeked up at her from beneath his hair, and her expression had settled into something less standoffish. “You don’t have to hide.”

Quentin glanced at Eliot, quickly, but Eliot was nodding, and he looked so accepting that Quentin felt able to straighten up a little bit and face them both, if not head-on, then at least at a more courageous angle.

“Not a fan of teasing?” Margo asked, brushing at something invisible on the sleeve of her embroidered jacket.

Quentin just shook his head, having trouble finding his voice just then.

“I like to tease people,” she warned him.

“But she doesn’t have to,” Eliot said, a warning in his voice.

She sighed. “I suppose not.”

She looked disappointed, though, her pretty face suddenly distant, almost sad; Quentin squared up his narrow shoulders, and said, “I can take it.”

Instead of answering him, she raised that same eyebrow at Eliot. “Your taste is getting better.”

And Quentin realized they teased each other, as well, and somehow that made it okay.

“Stop,” Eliot was protesting, though he was laughing a bit still.

“You always say that,” Margo said, a tone of mock long-suffering. “But listen, we still need to talk about distribution.”

Eliot sobered, his body language changing in a way that made Quentin stiffen slightly. “You can’t share this with Marina, understand?”

“No, no, of course, I, I wouldn’t.”

“Good,” Eliot said, touching his arm again. “That’s good.” Then he turned to Margo. “Where are we with O’Connelly?”

Even if Eliot had taken him at his word, Quentin knew it would be better if he didn’t listen. He took another small sip of his syrup, then dug through his bag for his battered copy of _The Secret Sea_. The last thing Quentin needed was even more knowledge about drug operations in the city; if he heard something, well, he certainly wouldn’t tell Marina, but. He might tell Julia. Especially if she asked. It was better if he just didn’t have the information. He let their voices wash over him without listening to any of the words, losing himself in his favorite part of the book, where Rupert sailed into the Abyss and had to fight the oppressing eternal darkness.

His life felt like that sometimes. But only sometimes, he thought, peering through his hair at Eliot’s serious face, at Margo’s studious frown.

He didn’t have to amuse himself for long. After just a few minutes, a waiter arrived at the entrance to the alcove carrying a heavily laden tray. The food she put down was a lot fancier than the food at the diner, and she poured them glasses of red wine from a bottle that looked expensive.

Quentin eyed the food uneasily. He identified caviar, he thought, but other items were a lot more mysterious. A blood-red cube with a green leaf stuck in the top. A glass bell filled with smoke. A glossy brown globe turning slowly in a bowl of syrup. 

“Not hungry?” Margo asked, popping one of the globes in her mouth. When she bit down, something crunched, the noise loud in the alcove, and smoke poured out between her painted lips.

Quentin stared at her. “Big breakfast.”

Margo laughed, though not meanly, and next to him Eliot’s shoulder shook with chuckles. “Try some wine, at least,” Eliot said, moving one of the glasses closer to Quentin.

Wine, Quentin could manage. He took a sip, and it was nice enough, not too dry.

“The oak barrels used in the aging process really soften the tannins,” Eliot said, tilting his own glass so that the wine caught the light.

Quentin set his empty glass back on the table. “Yeah, it’s good.”

Eliot smiled at him. “Do you want some more?”

“Sure,” Quentin said, nudging his glass closer.

After Eliot and Margo had talked for a while longer, Margo closed a sleek silver Mac and slid the laptop into a shoulder bag that had an odd pebbled texture. She stood, slung the bag over her shoulder, and left with a small wave to Quentin. He wiggled his fingers at her, getting a last smile before she closed the curtain.

“That's business done for the day,” Eliot said, putting his arm back around Quentin as if to signal the change in priorities. “What do you want to do next?”

Quentin thought for a moment. “Make out for a while?”

Eliot smiled that slow, satisfied grin. “You have surprisingly good ideas,” he said, before leaning in for a kiss.

They both tasted of wine, and Eliot’s large hand cupped the back of Quentin's neck in a gesture that was becoming familiar, and welcome. Quentin edged closer, bumping a knee on the edge of the table and not caring.

Quentin Coldwater loved kissing. He could do it all day, and happily, especially with the right person. Eliot, whatever else he might have been, was a fabulous kisser. 

Which is why, when Quentin's phone buzzed in his leather bag, he pulled back with a dismayed curse.

Eliot looked just slightly mussed, his lips red and his perfect hair tousled. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“Work,” Quentin said miserably, his eyes on the text from Julia. Just three numbers. Enough to ruin his day.

“I thought you had the day off,” Eliot said, and it sounded like he was disappointed.

“So did I,” Quentin sighed. “I'm sorry, I have to go.”

Eliot reached out and tucked some of Quentin's hair behind his ear. It was a surprisingly tender gesture. “Make it up to me,” he suggested smoothly. “Let me take you to dinner.”

Quentin's mouth fell open. “You're not mad?”

Eliot's expression softened. “No, Quentin. I'm not mad.”

And then he stopped talking, and just waited for Quentin's answer, as if he'd wait all day.

“I, um, dinner. Yeah,” Quentin stammered. “I, that sounds, um, nice.”

“Take the car,” Eliot said carelessly.

“Oh, I don't think, I mean, that might not be ... “

Eliot cut him off. “Have her drop you wherever you need. She can pick you up at the same place, around seven.”

Surely Julia wouldn't need him for six hours. “I'll, uh, see you later, then?”

“It's a date.”

Quentin blinked. “It is? A date?” He felt a blush heating his cheeks.

Eliot stared at him. “You are too adorable,” he said, as if to himself.

Still blushing, Quentin stammered his way through a farewell, and left the secluded booth under Eliot's amused eye.

A date! He couldn't remember the last time he'd been on a date.

Filled with a nervous sort of anticipation, Quentin climbed into Eliot's fancy car and asked the driver, a thin, wide-eyed blonde, to drop him near his apartment.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin meets with Julia, then tries to get ready for his date with Eliot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late, holidays, eh?

Julia was waiting for him near the taco stand down the block from his apartment. She was sitting on a concrete stoop and eating a taco, so Quentin got in line, bought himself a taco, and sat near her.

He took a bite, burned the roof of his mouth, and, chewing somewhat gingerly around the pain, asked, “Why the 911, what's going on?”

Not looking at him, Julia said, “I got an undercover on the inside of Marina's.” She took a bite, chewed slowly. “Her name is Kady. Taller than me, dark curly hair.”

“Marina’s new bodyguard,” Quentin realized.

“So you made contact?”

“I saw her in Marina's office, anyway.”

Julia looked triumphant, in a subdued, quiet sort of way. “Good, this is.” She took a breath. “I need Marina to trust her.”

“Okay,” Quentin said agreeably.

“So I need you to … put her in a good mood.”

“What do you mean?” he evaded.

Julia rolled her eyes. “Give her a little -” And she gestured oddly, fingers curled into a circle, thumb thrusting lewdly between them.

Quentin nearly dropped his taco. “You know?”

Julia glanced at him. “Q, everyone knows you're sleeping with the boss.”

Quentin took another bite of his taco before he could say anything else. His heart was thumping in his chest, and he had a moment of fear that it would give him away.

But Julia just kept talking. “Keep her in a good mood, so that when Kady gets a little closer, she doesn't even notice.”

“That's … put her in a good mood?” he could only repeat, his tone incredulous. 

“Yeah,” she said, too casually. “Show her some of those Coldwater moves.”

He stared at her openly. “Jules, you know I don't have moves.”

She looked uncomfortable, then, ducking her head. “Well, however you tricked her into bed the first time, turn that back up. I need her in a forgiving mood.”

As if Quentin had wanted to sleep with Marina. As if he'd had a say in the matter.

“What for?” he asked finally.

Julia’s eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared, just slightly. “I figured out how to get to Reynard.”

“Jules …” He gripped his taco a little more tightly, anxious. 

“Will you help me, or not?”

“I told you that I would,” he replied, wounded. “I just …”

“Then do this for me.”

Quentin took a breath, another. “I'll try.”

“You'd better do more than try, Q,” she snapped. In a sudden flurry of motion, she wadded up her taco wrapper, tossed it in a nearby trashcan, and stalked off.

Quentin stayed where he was. He finished his taco, and slowly folded the wrapper.

Julia’s need for revenge was going to get him killed, but maybe that's what he deserved.

* * *

After he climbed the stairs to his apartment, Quentin spent a few hours panicking over his date with Eliot.

He probably should have been panicking over Julia's plan, but in a way panicking over something so quotidian as a date was a relief.

So he distracted himself from what he would need to do by pulling out every piece of clothing he owned. He had to have something to wear that wouldn't make Eliot ashamed to be seen with him.

This was very much an assumption, and as he strewed shirts and pants all over his dingy living room, his assumption was proven false. He owned nothing nice. Eliot would realize what a fuck-up he was, and cancel the date before it even started.

As he was clawing through his chest of drawers, Quentin's heart began to beat oddly, not quite skipping. A feeling like it was turning over in his chest. He realized he was breathing hard, as if he'd been running, and his apartment, tiny as it was, seemed even smaller. He gasped for air, rummaging through his drawers as if finding a shirt that didn’t look like it had been rejected by a thrift shop would stop this panic attack in its tracks. 

There was nothing. He had nothing to wear, and he felt hot, too hot, the apartment too small, its walls closer than he remembered them being. He staggered into his tiny bathroom and straight into the shower, banging his knuckles into the lever, fumbling to turn it on, raising his face to the spray of icy water. His clothes soaked through almost immediately. The water hit his closed eyes and cooled the flush that had risen in his face, and suddenly he could breathe again.

In moments, he was shivering, and he shut the water off. He ran both hands through his wet hair, shoving it out of his eyes. He felt … exhausted. Drained. All the nervous energy gone down the drain with the water. He clenched both fists, driving his short, ragged nails into the flesh of his palm. He needed to keep it together. 

By the time he climbed out of the shower, his clothes were almost dry, and his palms were scored red. He staggered over to his couch, falling onto the ragged upholstery in his damp clothes, and downing most of a bottle of cough syrup. The warmth sank into his belly slowly, and Quentin finally started to relax. 

Eliot knew he was a walking disaster, and still asked him on a date. Quentin popped a couple of Xanax, took a breath, and started changing his clothes.

* * *

Eliot’s driver appeared precisely at seven o’clock, exactly where she’d dropped him off all those hours earlier. Quentin, dressed in his nicest button-down shirt and least dirty pair of black skinny jeans, avoided her look of disapproval and climbed into the back of the big, black car. The driver didn’t lower the partition, or say anything; she just peeled into traffic like the big car was a motorcycle. Quentin had thought himself too exhausted for nerves, at this point, but her reckless driving kicked his heart into gear. 

“Holy shit,” he yelped, grabbing the shoulder strap of his seatbelt. His palms stung, and he forced himself to let go. Eliot probably wouldn’t have sent someone to kill him solely via reckless driving. Probably. 

She drove back to the fancy club that Eliot had taken him to earlier, The Cottage, and Quentin was glad he’d tried to dress up a little. He still wouldn’t fit in, but he was exhausted enough to not really care anymore.

The driver didn’t get out of the car, or hold the door, or anything like that. Quentin climbed out, closing the door behind him, and he approached the club’s tasteful entrance on shaky legs. He thought maybe he'd been wrong about not caring. He looked like shit, and, as always, Eliot would look amazing, and order food Quentin didn't know anything about, and what was he even doing here, thinking he was good enough for Eliot.

Quentin reached for the strap of his leather bag - and froze, only remembering now that he'd left the bag in his apartment. 

Still standing outside the club's front door, Quentin wondered if he had time to go back for his bag. He looked up and down the street, as if for guidance. 

A woman exited the club, and stopped short, startled. She was pretty, around Quentin's age, her dark blonde hair in a fancy up-do. Quentin realized that he was standing pretty close to the door, and took a shuffling step back. “You lost?” the woman asked, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and tapping one out.

“No, I, um, I know where I am,” Quentin stammered, eyeing her cigarette enviously as she lit it with a cheap paper match. It was the last one, and she threw the book to the ground. “Can I …”

“Oh, sure,” the woman said, holding out the pack and waiting as he extracted a cig with delicate fingers. She took a deep drag, until the tip of hers glowed red, then held it out so that Quentin could light his on the smoldering ember.

“Thank you,” Quentin said, taking a shallow drag. The nicotine steadied his nerves, and the camaraderie of sharing a smoke made him feel a tiny bit less like a loser. “You, uh, here on a date?” 

The woman looked down at her own glittering dress and let out a low sort of laugh. “In a manner of speaking,” she said archly, before dropping her cigarette and grinding it to ashes with the toe of one fancy shoe. “I'd better get back in there,” she said, glancing at him. “You coming?”

“Oh. Yeah, I,” Quentin started, flicking the butt of his cigarette toward the nearest trash can. “Um, after you?”

She gave him a slightly odd look, but entered the club ahead of him. He followed her in, the heavy door closing behind him and instantly muffling the street noise. Somewhere in the club, a piano was being played, the tinkling notes traveling smoothly through the subdued space, muffled and diffused by the alcoves.

The same man was standing just inside the door, dark curly hair neatly gelled, wearing a suit like it was a uniform. He nodded to the woman, who went further into the club, then looked at Quentin. “You’re late,” he said, not asking for Quentin’s name or a reservation, just turning on his heel and leading Quentin to one of the alcoves. Quentin followed, hesitating before stepping through the curtain.

Eliot was sitting at the table inside, and part of Quentin relaxed. Another part tensed with anticipation. He sat down across from Eliot, sliding onto the butter-smooth leather seat with a sigh.

“Long day?” Eliot asked, raising one brow.

Quentin shrugged. “That … thing I had to do, um, took a while.” That wasn’t quite true, but he still thought he probably shouldn’t tell Eliot that he was a snitch. 

“At least it’s done with,” Eliot said, pulling a bottle out of a silver bucket. “Wine?”

“Yes, thank you.” Quentin accepted the glass and knocked half of it back. His hands were shaking, just a little, and he set the glass down hastily.

“Thirsty?”

“No, I, shit, I just …” Quentin looked at Eliot helplessly. 

“There’s plenty more, drink all you like,” Eliot said generously.

But Quentin thought there was something condescending in how he said it, and felt miserably gauche. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m not, um, not really fit for company.”

“It's okay, honey.” Eliot topped off Quentin’s glass, and made an encouraging gesture. “Go on, drink up.”

Quentin did, blinking as the alcohol hit his stomach and loosened his spine. He leaned back, letting out a breath. 

“Better?” Eliot asked indulgently.

“Getting there,” Quentin joked, gesturing with his glass as if giving a toast. It wasn’t codeine, but he hadn’t been drunk on nothing but wine in a while, and its quickly spreading warmth was surprisingly nice.

“Oh, wait, a toast with an empty glass is bad luck,” Eliot said, picking up the bottle again. This time the refill emptied it, Eliot upending the bottle to let the last drops plink into Quentin’s glass. “There. What shall we toast to?”

Quentin stared at him. “Um, the first date I’ve had in awhile?”

“I’ll drink to that.” Eliot’s lips twisted wryly, and he took a sip of wine. The way he drank it said everything about him, Quentin thought, and about how different they were. Eliot savored the wine, played it over his tongue, and his eyes closed in appreciation of the flavor.

Quentin shotgunned his.

Eliot gave him a considering look, and then reached under the table for something.

“What was that?” Quentin asked, trying to peek under his side of the table.

“There’s a call button,” Eliot explained, “for the waiters. I thought perhaps we should eat soon.”

“Oh, right. Good idea.” Quentin licked his lips. The wine was hitting his empty stomach pretty hard, but that seemed like a good thing, just then. He cast about for a topic of conversation. “Was, um, your day? Good?”

Eliot smiled oddly. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where’s my sweet boy from the diner?”

Quentin went red so fast that he felt lightheaded, the rush of heat to his cheeks like a wave, a tsunami. “What? I, um, I, I don’t.”

“Quentin.” Eliot’s voice was very deep, and something in it made Quentin still. “Quentin, what’s wrong?”

Still blushing, Quentin chewed on his lower lip. “I, um.” He couldn’t look at Eliot, at Eliot’s big, dark, sympathetic eyes. “I just, it was kind of a bad day, I guess.” 

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I, uh, I can’t.” Quentin squeezed his eyes shut, shoulders hunching. “I’m sorry, I’m such a piece of shit- “

“Hey,” Eliot said sharply. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

“But I - “

“I mean it, Quentin Coldwater,” Eliot said, reaching across the table to grab Quentin’s hand. “I won’t have you putting yourself down.” 

And then he squeezed Quentin’s hand, very gently. He didn’t remark on Quentin’s scratched and reddened palms, but didn’t ignore them either, his grip soothing and somehow understanding.

Quentin blinked at him, realizing his eyes were slightly teary. “Okay,” he said, sniffling.

“That’s better,” Eliot said, patting the back of Quentin’s hand. “Now, what do you want to eat?”

“That’s it?” Quentin asked, defensive. “You don’t want to know?”

“I want to know whatever you tell me,” Eliot said, sitting back. “I’ll never force you to tell me anything.”

“Why not?”

Eliot tilted his head. “What kind of dates have you been going on?”

Quentin shrugged, picking at the scratches on his palms. “Not very good ones, I guess.”

“Let’s see if we can’t do better,” Eliot said warmly. “Now, dinner?”

The waiter hovering outside their alcove ducked inside, and Eliot ordered something French and unpronounceable. 

Quentin looked down at the table top as if a menu would materialize.

“Whatever you want,” Eliot said, “or I could order something for you.”

“I kind of just want a grilled cheese,” Quentin admitted shamefully.

“With tomato soup?”

“Yeah,” Quentin said, slumping in his chair. “Please.”

The waiter didn’t say anything, or even make a snooty remark. He just left, and Quentin felt like a failure, a gauche, middle class failure.

But Eliot was smiling at him, and the waiter had delivered another bottle of wine, and Eliot asked a question that proved he’d been listening to Quentin’s Fillory-based ramblings, and Quentin felt something strange. 

He thought it might be hope.

“Well, Chatwin’s Torrent is supposed to be able to heal anything …”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their date continues, and Quentin learns a little more about Eliot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, okay, I'm off-schedule, I know. Sorry! Things get busy for me this time of year.

Quentin and Eliot went through three more bottles of wine between the two of them, and Quentin didn’t drink much more than his share, keeping the warm, tipsy feeling going. The waiter brought out the fanciest, most elaborate looking grilled cheese Quentin had ever seen, with a very elegant looking soup. He wasn’t sure what about its appearance made it seem elegant, but that was the only way he could describe it. The grilled cheese was delicious, gooey and bursting with flavor, and the soup was sharp-tasting and velvety. Eliot’s dish was something quite constructed and intimidating. Quentin accepted a taste, and went gratefully back to his relatively simple soup and sandwich.

“I’m just not this fancy, I guess,” Quentin said morosely.

“You don't have to be fancy,” Eliot said.

Hunched in on himself, Quentin just shrugged a little.

Eliot huffed a sigh, and leaned forward a little. “I don’t tell many people this,” he said.

“What?” Quentin asked, mirroring Eliot and leaning in closer. 

“Where do you think I’m from?”

“Here? New York? Or, like, the Hamptons?”

Eliot smiled, and it was, again, slightly odd. “I grew up on a farm. In Indiana.”

Quentin’s eyes widened. “No, really?”

“This facade was my first, great project,” Eliot said, and while it seemed grandiose the words sounded self-deprecating. “There were things I wanted in my life, and I changed myself to get them.”

Quentin shook his head. “That’s … amazing.” He peered into his soup, its red depths rippling beneath the lights. He wished he could become someone else, and said so.

Eliot’s mouth became a flat line. “I said I wouldn’t make you tell me,” he said pensively.

Quentin bit his lip nervously. “You did …”

“But if you want to tell me why you feel that way,” Eliot said, “I would listen.”

Quentin shrank in on himself a bit. “I’ve never, um. Talking is. Bad. It.”

He was twisting his hands together, and Eliot put a hand over them to hold them still. “Only if you want to.”

“Thank you,” Quentin said, sagging a bit. He badly wanted a sip of cough syrup, and downed the rest of his wine as the closest alternative.

Eliot kept on of his hands, and turned it over, now drawing attention to Quentin’s reddened palms. He stroked the edge of a scratch very gently. “And this?”

Quentin’s fingers twitched in Eliot’s hold. “It, um, I, just. Nerves?”

Eliot’s dark eyes softened. “Was this too much?”

“No, I wanted to come!” Quentin protested quickly.

“I know this is all a bit -” Eliot waved his free hand at the club in general. 

Beyond their curtained alcove, the muffled noise of people talking and the distant piano had barely intruded on Quentin’s attention. It felt private and cozy. But. “I do like the diner.”

Eliot’s expression did something slightly strange then, and he said, “Oh, you sweet thing,” and clutched Quentin’s hand a little more carefully as Quentin blushed and ducked his head. “Of course, we can go to the diner for our second date.”

“Second?” Quentin asked. “You mean, I didn’t ruin it?”

“You didn’t ruin anything, sugar.” Eliot opened another bottle of wine, then recaptured Quentin’s hand. “You don’t have to be nervous. And if you are, maybe we can deal with it together.”

Quentin gulped wine, sighed. “I usually, um.”

“Is that why the cough syrup? I wondered where it was tonight.”

“I sort of forgot.”

“You have had a bad day,” Eliot commiserated. “Would you like some?”

Quentin perked up a bit. “Do you have, I mean, is that too much trouble?”

“I’m not sure you understand what kind of club this is.” Eliot lifted Quentin’s hand up, kissed the knuckles, and stood. “Hang tight, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Quentin said faintly. Eliot’s lips were very soft, he thought, and stared after where Eliot had disappeared to.

Eliot had left the curtain slightly parted, and as Quentin stared through the opening, he saw the pretty woman he’d talked to outside walk up onto a stage. There were other tables out there, he realized, not in alcoves but out in the open before the low stage, the piano and a stand microphone. Her sparkly dress and slightly odd answers made sense now, he thought, as she started singing. 

It was a throaty, sultry sort of song, and it was like something out of an old movie. (His frame of reference was actually _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_ moreso than TCM, but he would never admit it.) She swayed gently behind the stand mike, and the piano tinkled delicately, and Quentin did not know what to make of this place, that seemed so very classy but which clearly had Eliot’s criminal enterprise running just underneath the surface.

Quentin got a little lost in the music. He swayed gently in his seat in time with the singing woman, and the smooth notes sent tingles over his scalp and down his spine that made him close his eyes in pleasure. 

“Lovely girl,” said a man’s voice.

Quentin’s eyes flew open as he flinched back in the booth, looking up to see a white man in his fifties, distinguished in a bespoke suit; between that and the plummy accent, Quentin figured he was British.

The man glanced at Quentin. “Don’t you think?”

There was something unsettling about his manner, or that plummy accent, and Quentin shrugged. “Sure.”

The man smiled, to all appearances sincerely but in a way that sent shivers of a different sort down Quentin’s spine, and left. 

Quentin still felt unsettled when Eliot returned shortly thereafter, and when Eliot offered him the cough syrup, he took the proffered bottle, broke its seal, and downed a mouthful. 

Both of Eliot’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t realize it was that bad. My apologies.”

Quentin swallowed, and then shook his head. “Sorry, just. Some weird British dude came by, and-”

Eliot’s gaze sharpened. “I left the curtain open, damn it.”

“It was fine, it was mostly fine. I was enjoying the music.”

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

“Um, just asked if I was enjoying the song, really.”

Eliot leaned back. “Hm.”

He looked distracted, troubled. Quentin chewed on his lip for a moment. “Are you, um, mad?”

“Not at you, sugar,” Eliot said with a quick flicker of a smile. 

“Oh, okay,” Quentin said, taking another gulp of syrup.

Who she'd been mad at had never decided who Marina would hurt. Quentin, as the frequent object of her retribution, would almost rather have also been the object of her anger. At least then his pain would mean something.

“Look, just don't talk to that man if you see him again,” Eliot said.

Quentin looked at him, surprised. “Oh, is that …”

Eliot's hard expression softened. “I'm just worried about you.”

“Oh,” Quentin said. He didn't quite know what to make of Eliot's concern, and squirmed a little under his scrutiny.

“Come on,” Eliot said, standing again. “Let me walk you home.”

They walked slowly together under the stars. Quentin assumed there were stars - it was hard to tell in the city lights. But it was more romantic with stars, and that was how the walk felt. Romantic. Eliot held his hand the whole way, even after Quentin's got a little sweaty. 

There was a strange moment when Quentin felt watched, again, though when he looked around the street seemed unaccountably empty. 

“Everything okay?” Eliot asked him, tugging on his hand very gently.

“Yeah, it's nothing,” Quentin said, shrugging off the odd feeling and falling into step with Eliot.

Eliot tucked Quentin against his side, and Quentin felt … warm. 

At Quentin's building, Eliot walked him all the way up the stairs, all five long flights. Quentin was a little winded by the end, as usual, and slightly ashamed he tried to disguise his panting breaths by raising up on his toes and kissing Eliot's cheek.

“What was that for?” Eliot asked, looking charmed.

Quentin ducked his head. “It was a really nice date.”

“Oh really,” Eliot purred, and pulled Quentin into a kiss.

Quentin stayed up on his toes as long as he could, Eliot bending over to ravish his mouth. Quentin's posture faltered, and Eliot grabbed Quentin's ass and hauled him up. Quentin squeaked with surprise, but got his legs around Eliot's waist, still kissing him, heat blooming low in his belly and tensing his thighs. Eliot made a hungry sound and pressed Quentin's back into the wall.

And Quentin realized they were still in the hallway, they hadn't gotten inside, and that made him even hotter, tearing a groan from his throat.

Eliot pulled back. “Can I come inside?” 

He was breathing hard, lips red and hair tousled, and Quentin realized he'd been running his hands through it.

He wanted to invite Eliot in. He wanted to sleep with Eliot, wake up next to him.

He didn't want this night to end. 

But the bruises. The marks.

“I. Um. I don't …”

“Then I think we'd better stop here.” Eliot lowered him to the floor, steadied him when he wobbled. He didn't look upset; a little disappointed, maybe.

“I want to …” Quentin paused, not sure how to explain.

“It's okay,” Eliot said, smiling down at him. He ran a hand through Quentin's hair, tucking a bit of it behind his ears. “When you're ready.”

Then he kissed Quentin goodnight, and walked steadily back down the hallway.

Quentin watched him go, touching his lips as if he could still feel Eliot there.

Fumbling the key, he shouldered through his door, stumbled over the threshold. He’d forgotten the bottle Eliot had given him back at The Cottage. He dug a fresh one out of a cabinet, and downed three swallows. Even as the warmth hit him, he couldn’t stop berating himself. It had been such a good date, except for him. His life was so fucked up, but in every situation, he was the common denominator. Eliot just wanted a little uncomplicated sex, and here he was spewing his fucked-up-ness all over Eliot’s nice life.

“God, just act like a person,” Quentin moaned, fisting both hands in his hair. 

There was their follow-up date tomorrow. Maybe then he could fool Eliot into thinking he was ‘cool’ and ‘with it’ and ‘not a walking disaster.’

In spite of the voice in his head saying ‘not a chance, Coldwater,’ this small hope was enough to help him get to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin decides to run an errand before his date with Eliot, and ends up running into some trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments, they make me live!!!

The Safehouse looked sad and gray in the daylight. Quentin usually arrived after the neon lights had been turned on. At two on a weekday, the bare glass and metal frames looked skeletal and drained of their usual vibrancy. Quentin felt like those unlit signs, unwashed hair and sweats signaling his depression better than his slightly blank expression. He moved through the empty club like an automaton, inwardly eager to get home and get ready for his date but scared to show any such emotion in this place. 

A few of the custodial staff were in, cleaning. Marisol waved to him, shyly. He waved back, but kept going.

He just had to pick up product to make sales for next week, and he could carve out enough time to heal before Eliot gave up on him. Poppy was usually in a much more forgiving mood than Marina, so he had high hopes that she'd be relatively sympathetic. 

But when he ducked his head into Poppy’s office, it was empty. 

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his gray hoodie, Quentin wandered through the back hallway slowly, almost hoping that if he delayed long enough she'd magically show up. He took a bottle out of his leather bag and sipped while he waited.

In the distance, he heard an odd, muffled thud.

He didn't usually come into the club this early, so at first he dismissed it - maybe the thud was part of the normal, everyday routine of getting the place ready for a bunch of horny men.

But then he heard it again, down the hallway. It almost sounded like it was coming from Marina’s office.

Quentin looked up and down the hallway as if an answer would materialize. None did. Gripping the strap of his bag, Quentin took a few steps down the hallway. The leather strap quickly got sweaty beneath his palms. “Hello?” he called softly. 

There was another thump, and he paused. “Is someone being creepy on purpose?” he asked forlornly.

No one answered.

He took another step down the hallway -

And Marina's office door flew open. 

Quentin flinched back against the wall as Pete strode out of the room. He saw Quentin, and stopped short. Quentin looked behind him as if for help. Pete snapped his fingers a couple of times, the sound harsh in the quiet hall. “You, messenger boy, get in there.”

“Um, I was just …”

“Now!” Pete snapped, and glared at Quentin until he crept past the looming enforcer and into Marina's office.

There was a man inside. Tied to a chair. 

The office door closed behind him with a loud clack. Quentin's shoulders hunched at the sound. The man tied to the chair turned his head from side to side, but couldn't get his head turned far enough to get a glimpse of Quentin. As the man tossed his head, Quentin could see that there was a gag in his mouth. 

Quentin swallowed.

Marina was standing behind her desk. Quentin thought Pete must have been beating up the man in the chair. Perhaps that had been the noise Quentin had heard, the strange muffled thuds.

“Quentin,” Marina said, her voice sharp and strangely pleased. “You're here early.”

Quentin glanced between the man in the chair and Marina, licked his lips. “I was just, uh, picking up some more product …”

Marina waved a hand sharply, and he shut up. “Come over here,” she snapped.

Quentin set his bag down by the door, and, shuffling his feet, Quentin went.

As he passed by the man, Quentin darted glances at him, catching a broken profile, streaks of blood. Quentin’s heart turned over in his chest, his breathing grew shallow. He stopped a few feet from Marina, holding his hands rigidly at his sides. 

Her cold blue eyes looked him up and down. “You look like shit,” was her eventual assessment.

He fidgeted. “I was going straight back home, to, um, to get cleaned up."

She rolled her eyes. “Don't care. Get undressed.”

Quentin glanced behind him at the wide-eyed man in the chair. He was a little older, with ginger hair and blue eyes, a softer shade than Marina’s. Quentin forced himself to look away, but couldn't quite shake the terror in those eyes.

With slightly unsteady fingers, Quentin pulled his hoodie over his head. He got stuck, staggered sideways and wrestled his way out of it. Once free, he glanced at Marina, but she was looking at something on her desk, ignoring him. He held onto the hoodie for a moment.

His flailing had put him a few steps closer to the man in the chair. So when Marina looked up from her papers and shot the man in the chest, his blood splattered across Quentin.

Wet, hot, on his skin. He flinched, hard, and froze, the noise and the sudden wetness a shock. Blood streaked his track pants and the hoodie wadded up in his arms.

Only then did Marina look at him. She sighed. “I thought I told you to get undressed.”

The man sagged, the life draining out of him. Quentin dropped the hoodie. It fell to the floor with an odd squelch. He shuddered. 

Marina was smiling. It was a strange grin. Full of odd pleasures. Quentin couldn't quite look at it, though he wasn't allowed to look away. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Horripilation. He felt the currents in the air. Marina’s lipstick was as red as the fresh blood. Her smile a red gash in her bone-pale face.

She came around the desk. He … went away, for a while.

* * *

Quentin staggered into his apartment, breathing hard. Leather bag thump on the floor, sweats thrown away from him, away. He was in the shower. The water was hot, hotter than he liked it. Steam covered the pebbled glass door, fogged up the mirror until there was no chance he could see himself. Burned his back, his hands. He was shaking. Couldn't get the blood off. 

That poor man. His sad blue eyes, empty and flat as a china dish. 

His blood dried brown, dried black, crusting on Quentin's skin. In his hair. Scrubbed himself, shaking with horrified disgust, get it off get it off getitoff getitoffgetitoffgetitoff

There were bloody smudges on his precious leather bag. He would find those later, nearly break himself trying to clean them off. For now, he shotgunned a full bottle of cough syrup and collapsed into welcome oblivion on his couch.

* * *

Loud banging on his door drew Quentin out of his drugged sleep. Squinting blearily, he realized it had gotten dark, his apartment grown dark around him. He was on his couch, as usual. Naked, not as usual. Wrapping a blanket around himself, he trudged toward the door, assuming Julia wanted an update. 

But when he opened the door, Eliot was standing there.

His warm brown eyes looked Quentin up and down, and worry creased his handsome face. “Sugar, what happened?”

Quentin blinked up at him. Swayed a little. “Um.”

Eliot caught him as he sagged, big hands on his arms holding him up, then Eliot hustled him over to the couch. Quentin sank back down gratefully. 

Eliot sat beside him. Tweaked the edge of the towel with two fingers. “Are you okay?”

A shudder wracked Quentin. He shook his head. Leaned into Eliot’s side.

Eliot put one long arm around him, and let Quentin lay his head on Eliot’s vest, and held him while Quentin shook. 

“Who did this to you, sweetheart?” Eliot asked, pressing the words against Quentin’s hair. 

Quentin shook his head, a small, timid movement. Clutched harder onto Eliot. Eliot returned the embrace, clutching Quentin tighter to his side. Eliot’s grip actually hurt a little, on Quentin’s bruises, but Quentin didn’t move or try to struggle out of Eliot’s hold. He felt a little safer in that hold.

After a while his nerves gave out, not even their jangled state enough to fight the amount of codeine he’d taken, and he drifted into an uneasy doze. 

He woke to light on his face, a blanket wrapped around him and tucked up to the chin, and noise in his tiny kitchen.

“Rise and shine,” Eliot called warmly. “You hungry?”

Quentin’s mouth was desert-dry, his eyes bleary. He worked an arm free, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and croaked, “You’re still here?”

Eliot had been whisking something, or stirring something, but at Quentin’s words the noise stopped, and Eliot took the few steps necessary to poke his head into the living room. “Quentin, of course I’m still here.”

He was holding a bowl, and a whisk, it actually was a whisk. Quentin didn’t think he owned a whisk. Quentin blinked at him. Eliot’s expression softened. “Why don’t you get cleaned up,” Eliot suggested. “Breakfast will be ready in a minute.”

He disappeared back into the tiny kitchen, and Quentin wondered for a moment if he were just hallucinating all this. Was Eliot even real?

He ran a hand through his hair, and found it had dried in an odd bird’s nest. And Eliot had seen him like this. He groaned, and staggered up off the couch to the bathroom.

Realizing then that he was also naked.

“Oh my god,” he muttered, pressing both fists to his temples. “Just get it together, come on, buddy, you can do this.”

He jumped in the shower, just for a minute, then brushed his hair and teeth. “Cologne?” he wondered, pawing through his medicine cabinet. He didn’t own any cologne. His forehead rested against the cold glass of the mirror. Part of him wanted to drive his head through the mirror, watch it crack, see if there was someplace better on the other side of it. 

His mind flickered, very briefly, to blue eyes, and blood. 

He shook it off, slathered on some deodorant and climbed into his favorite pair of jeans, black, his favorite T-shirt, black but splashed with rainbow colors that coalesced into an abstract representation of Bowie's Ziggy make-up, and shuffled out barefoot to find Eliot cheerfully putting the finishing touches on crepes.

Quentin stared around his kitchen. The tiny space had been transformed, with utensils and small appliances he’d never owned cluttering up the foot or so of counter space, but in a way that almost didn’t seem like clutter; a large flat pan on a burner, and a stainless steel coffee maker hissing away, the smell of coffee and warm sugar filling the small space.

“What is all this?” he asked, leaning on the counter.

Eliot looked at him, smiled. “I wanted to make you breakfast, but you didn’t have much in the way of supplies.”

Quentin winced. “Right, sorry, I haven’t been, um, I mean.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Eliot said, putting down the large flat pan and touching Quentin’s shoulder gently. “I wanted to.” He grinned flirtily. “I love showing off in the kitchen.”

“You, well, I mean, this is impressive,” Quentin said, looking at the plate of crepes, the bowls of cut fruit. Plates he didn’t recognize. He blinked. “It’s just, um.”

“People don’t do things for you much, do they?” Eliot asked. 

Quentin shrugged. “Not, um, not like this.”

Eliot nodded sympathetically. “Here, eat something,” he said, and passed Quentin a plate and a cup.

The coffee was good, as good as at the diner, and the crepes, stuffed with a lemony sort of cream and dusted with powdered sugar, were fucking amazing, which he told Eliot.

Eliot smiled, and this smile seemed a little more genuine, more open than the others. He looked almost shy. “I’m glad you like them.”

He turned back to the stove, pouring more batter. The pan sizzled. The back of Eliot’s neck was just a touch red. Quentin watched him cook, charmed. And that feeling chased away the lingering chill from the night before. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Quentin said in a small voice.

Eliot smiled that pleased smile at him again. “Me, too.”

He plated his own crepe, and sat across from Quentin to eat. 

They ate quietly. Quentin felt something that wasn’t quite hunger. Eating made it quieter, so he ate until his stomach hurt, then stopped, abruptly,

Eliot was looking at him, and his expression seemed concerned. 

Quentin avoided his eyes. 

“I worry about you,” Eliot said, his voice low.

Quentin bit his lip. “You don’t have to.”

It might have been nice to have someone worried about him, he wasn’t sure.

Eliot stood, and gathered up their plates. Quentin watched him for a moment, as he walked over to the sink and started washing the dishes. Quentin started up. “I’ll do that.”

Eliot tossed him a smile. “I’ve got it.”

“But you cooked.”

“Quentin, I don’t know what happened to you,” Eliot said, facing the sink, “but I want to help. If this is all I can do …”

Quentin sank back down onto his stool. “I, um. I can’t …”

“I know.” Eliot sighed, back still to Quentin. “If you ever want to tell me, I’ll listen. Until then, let me take care of you. At least a little.”

Quentin felt the blush creeping up his neck to his face. “That, um, that sounds. Nice?”

Eliot tossed a slightly mischievous glance over his shoulder. “You’re not sure?”

“No, I, well, I mean, I don’t.”

Eliot laughed, a warm sound. It sent pleasing gooseflesh up Quentin’s arms and across his neck. He found himself smiling at the sound, entirely without meaning to. Eliot’s handsome profile bent over his task, and Quentin watched him clean up the tiny kitchen, thinking, finally, he wasn’t alone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin sees Marina again before he really wants to, and meets and new friend.

Eliot didn’t leave until he’d also fed Quentin lunch, and cajoled him through a real shower, a mid-afternoon snack, and a promise to get some sleep. He promised to check on him later that night, and then left Quentin curled in a nest on his couch, blowing a kiss and then closing the door behind him.

Quentin felt strangely drained. Eliot’s company had been very welcome, and had kept him from thinking about what had happened. But now that he was alone, Quentin started thinking of blood again, of the sound of flesh on flesh. He shuddered, curling tighter into his blanket. 

That poor man, he couldn’t help but think. He’d looked so scared. 

Maybe he’d deserved it. Maybe he was a bad man, like Marina was a bad woman. 

But part of Quentin didn’t think so. He really didn’t think so.

* * *

After putting on some _Fillory and Further_ for the comforting noise, Quentin dozed off, slipping into slightly odd dreams. In the dreams, Quentin was in Fillory. Fillory was real, and even in the dream Quentin could barely believe it. He was there with Eliot, and they were hunting one of the Questing Beasts, the White Lady. She’d never appeared on the TV show, but in his dream, she looked like a woman, mostly, though covered in white fur and with a deer’s graceful, elongated legs. She walked on white hooves, and her hands ended in hooves, and antlers curled about her head. Quentin shot her with an arrow, and Eliot clapped him on the back, so hard it hurt, shouting his congratulations. 

It was the shouting that woke him up.

A man was at the door, pounding on it so loudly that Quentin winced at each blow. He stumbled up out of his nest and hurried over to the door, slightly worried one of his neighbors might call the police. 

When he’d fumbled the door open, still half-asleep, Pete loomed over him.

Quentin staggered back, hands going up to his chest in a protective gesture. 

Pete sneered at him. “Come on, Marina wants you.”

Quentin swallowed queasily. “Yeah, um, let me just …” He rubbed at the sleep in his eyes. “Need to clean up,” he mumbled.

Pete rolled his eyes. “Go on, then, hurry up.” He then stalked into the kitchen and leaned on the counter like it had insulted him.

Keeping a wary eye on Marina’s enforcer, Quentin scurried to his bathroom, closing himself in with a relieved breath. 

He turned on the shower, the knobs squeaking loudly and the water thundering down, but didn’t get in yet. He moved around the small mirror to brush his teeth, avoiding his own reflection, and to feel at his stubble. Maybe he needed to shave.

These thoughts couldn’t distract him from what he knew was coming.

He had the razor in his hand. His fingers were gripping the carved wooden handle a little too tightly. It was his dad’s antique straight razor. He didn’t even remember taking it after the funeral. 

He stared down at it, gripped it with both hands, mesmerized by the light shifting in the wavering, trembling blade. 

Marina wanted him, Pete had said. Marina wanted him, and the last time Marina had wanted him, a man had died, and Quentin.

Quentin had -

Quentin abruptly sat down on the toilet’s closed lid, like his legs had been cut out from beneath him. The razor was still gripped in both hands. The shower was still running, its white noise not quite enough to drown out the thoughts. He panted, felt the steam filling his lungs, clogging them up, choking him, he was choking on the air, sucking more and more in but not feeling it, he couldn’t feel it.

A glint of silver raised red lines on the inside of his right thigh, small, neat, parallel. Practiced, though he would have assumed the skill to be rusty. Some crossed old white lines. 

A surge of endorphins. His shoulders dropped. He slumped against the back of the toilet. “Jesus,” he muttered. His head swam. Settled. He could breathe again.

Feeling slightly foggy, he climbed into the shower, scrubbed himself down quickly but thoroughly. Washed his hair. Conditioned. 

When he stepped out of the shower, Pete was in the room.

“Shit!” he yelped, flinching back. He got tangled in the shower curtain, nearly fell. Pete caught his arm in an iron grip, more than hard enough to bruise.

Quentin cringed, trying weakly to free his arm. Pete said, “Hurry up,” then let go of his arm so abruptly Quentin nearly fell again. He wobbled, grabbed his towel off its rack. Pete left, slamming the bathroom door behind him. Quentin dried himself shakily, combed his hair, called it good enough.

When he emerged, Pete threw a handful of clothing at him. Quentin barely caught it, snapped, “What is your problem?”

Pete smiled, a strange, thin smile. “Just get dressed.”

Quentin fumbled into the clothes, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. No underwear, no shoes. He didn't dare ask for any.

The second he was done, Pete grabbed his arm and hauled him bodily out of his apartment, moving too quickly down the five flights of stairs. Quentin stumbled after him in his bare feet, feeling so much weaker, so vulnerable in Pete’s grip. The anxiety was starting to build again, on top of the crash as the endorphins drained from his system.

He couldn't understand why Marina had sent Pete to get him. She never had before, content (or at least willing) to wait until he came in for the day. Considering what had happened last time … Marina could think him a loose end. Pete could be dragging him to his death. 

Any hard-won calm was lost. His heart sped up, his breath came fast and shallow. She was going to kill him.

Then they were outside, in the cold. His feet dragged, scraped over concrete. Pete shook him, hauled him bodily forward. Quentin whimpered, tripped over the curb, skinned a toe. Pete cursed, a muffled, distant sound Quentin couldn't understand, and pressed a button on his key fob that opened the trunk of his car.

Quentin stared at the yawning black space within the trunk, and tried to run. 

He got exactly nowhere. Pete's grip on his arm jerked him back within a step, and then both hands were on him, crushing his arms, and Pete easily, without care, flung him into the trunk and slammed the lid.

And Quentin was in the dark.

It was a spacious trunk, a very nice car. Big enough for a few bodies. But Quentin still felt the rising claustrophobia of being trapped. He huddled against a duffle bag, wrapped his arms around his middle, hissing at the pull of new bruises. Still breathing too fast. He didn't have his cough syrup, hadn't had any in a while, had nothing to stop the spiraling panic. The little air he could get smelled like gasoline, rubber, metal. His heart fluttered in his chest. He pushed at the lid. It didn't budge or even shift. The thing living in his belly shifted, rolled over. He kicked out. Hit the lid again. Couldn't help himself, started scrabbling frantically for freedom, hurling himself against the hard sides of this suspiciously large trunk, battering his limbs against the thin carpet and hard metal, the suspiciously hard things in the duffel bag.

Nothing changed. Pete was driving quickly, taking corners so sharply that Quentin was flung about. His stomach rolled and turned, the fight drained out of him. Eventually he gave up, and lay waiting for death, panting.

He had brief fantasies of jumping at Pete when he opened the trunk, but in the event, just lay there, stared up at Pete through tearing eyes. Pete sighed and pulled him bodily out of the trunk, set him on his own feet and held him there until he could stand. Pete said something. Quentin didn't understand the words, shook his head. Pete scowled, bent down, and put his shoulder into Quentin's gut. He stood easily. Quentin's head swam, and he clutched at Pete's suit jacket, hanging dizzily over Pete's shoulder. Pete carried him into the club through the loading entrance, and Quentin watched concrete turn to carpeting with a sense of resigned, distant sadness. There wasn’t much else he really wanted to do with his life, really, it was a shitshow thus far, but. The one thing. It would have been nice to see Eliot again …

Pete carried him like this all the way into Marina’s office, and dumped him on his feet in the place where a man had died. Quentin swayed, barely stayed upright. Marina was behind her desk. Quentin blinked at her dizzily.

“Get out of here,” Marina snapped.

Quentin took a step back, but Pete held him in place, and a different man left the room, someone who looked weirdly like the dead man, he thought, a glimpse of red hair and he was seeing ghosts. He shivered, wrapped his arms around himself.

“You, too,” Marina told Pete, who sniffed, then left as if he’d been planning to the whole time. 

Then Quentin was standing in the middle of the room, shivering.

That bodyguard, Julia’s inside woman, was still propped against one wall. She was glaring at the closed door, as if her thoughts were on something or someone outside of this room. Quentin wondered if she knew about the murder that had occurred in this very spot, if she knew that he was standing on carpet still damp with industrial cleaners, if she had told Julia about the murder and Julia had just ignored it because she was so fixated on getting Reynard. 

Quentin shivered partly because of these thoughts, partly because Pete hadn’t given him time to grab a hoodie before dragging him here. 

Marina was about to kill him, he knew it. Would the bodyguard tell Julia about that, at least?

Quentin was shaken out of his thoughts by Marina’s approach. She stalked to him, confidence in every stretch of her long legs, her lips curled in a slightly cruel smile. “You were incredible last night,” she said oddly.

Quentin took a shuffling step back. He didn’t know how to reply to this.

She put one hand on his cheek, and in her tall spike heels they were nearly eye to eye. He focused on the bridge of her nose, thinking desperately of nothing. Her eyes roamed over the corners of his face, devouring. “Really quite something,” she said, musingly. Her hand turned his face side to side, as if she needed to inspect every inch of him. 

He said nothing. Trembled.

She gentled her touch, kissed him. He opened to her. The shaking was a little worse now. She guided him down onto the slightly damp carpet and pulled the shirt over his head. The bodyguard was still in the room. Quentin glanced at her. She was stone-faced, staring at the door. Marina recaptured his attention with a slap. He gasped at the pain, looked at her fearfully. The look made her smile. Kneeling on the carpet, Quentin wanted very badly to be anywhere else. But, resigned, opened to her every kiss. She reached down and unbuttoned his jeans with rough hands, making his belly jump and flinch beneath her touch. She worked the jeans down his hips, seeming pleased at the lack of his usual boxers, then down his thighs.

And she stopped.

Her face changed. 

“What is this?”

Quentin looked down. Remembered the red lines on his inner thigh. “Um, nothing, it's.”

She pushed him flat and the gleam in her eye sent a wary shiver down his spine. “You should have told me you liked pain,” she purred, and pulled a butterfly knife from the pocket of her satin pants.

“No, I mean, I didn't …” Quentin stammered, watching her work the knife open, a spinning, shining flourish. 

“Stop talking,” she said, and made the first cut.

It was deeper than he’d ever gone, a quick sting and then a growing, burning pain. He flung his head back, bit down on a curse. She cut carelessly, the sharp blade slicing through the skin and into the underlayer of fat in places. Quentin whined, tugged his own hair, took it.

When she’d finished carving lines near his groin, she worked him to hardness, and fucked him there on the floor, in front of the undercover cop while Quentin cried quietly to himself. She watched the tears flow, and after she came a few times, leaned in close, her face to his, and hissed, “I'm the only one who hurts you, got it?”

He nodded quickly, scared to look away. She stood up, that satisfied look on her face, his blood staining her pale thighs. “Get out of here,” she said, walking over to her desk and pulling out that pack of cigarettes. 

He pulled his jeans up, moving the rough denim gingerly over the fresh wounds, and scurried out of there with his T-shirt bundled in his hands, not daring to take the time to get it on.

Pete was standing outside the door, an odd look on his face. While Quentin struggled into his shirt, Pete gave him a once-over, snickering at the smears of blood. Quentin pulled the hem of the shirt down self-consciously. “Can I get a ride?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“No,” Pete snorted, and walked away.

Quentin looked after him, feeling despair well up in his belly. His fingers twitched, fluttered. His leg throbbed and stung. He wanted a little cough syrup; or a lot. Or something stronger.

He padded barefoot down to Poppy's office, limping.

Poppy was behind her desk, a vivacious redhead with a certain amoral charm. She grinned at him, ignoring any bruises or smears of blood. “Q-ball! How's it going, man. Already out?”

Quentin closed her door behind him, edged to one side. He was shaking, but didn't think she noticed. “No, uh, it's, it's not, um.”

She rolled her eyes. “Spit it out, Q, I don't have all night.”

“Could I get a ride home?” He looked down, pressed a fist against the pain in his stomach. “Maybe a pill, just on loan?”

She peered at him rather intently for a moment, twirling a finger through her red hair. Her lips pursed thoughtfully. “Short on time, buddy. The pill I can do. Upper? Downer? A little bit of both?”

Quentin wilted a little. “Pain?”

“You got it, Q-ball,” she said briskly, opening a drawer in the desk and pulling out a small, unlabeled bottle. “I think I've got some benzos in here, or some k.” She shrugged, tossed him the bottle. “Knock yourself out.”

“That's the idea,” he muttered, screwing off the top and extracting one small, yellow-ish pill. “Thanks, Pop,” he said, and swallowed.

“You'll get me back,” she said confidently, and waved him off. 

He set the bottle on a small table near the door and padded back down the hall.

He paused near the back door, looked toward the girls’ dressing room. Maybe one of them …

Just then, the undercover cop came out of Marina's office, grabbed his arm, and hauled him down the hall.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin speaks with Kady, learns some bad news at the diner, and has another date with Eliot.

Quentin stumbled in the cop’s grip, the cuts burning, his bare feet catching on the carpet and folding under him. “What, what are.”

“Taking you home, idiot,” she said, pulling harder.

She dragged him that way through the back door to a powder blue hatchback and tossed him inside. Quentin curled into the worn fabric seat, almost unable to feel the new cuts on his feet past the fire that chased his upper thigh. He worried at his fingers, made himself stop. 

The cop climbed into the driver's seat, slamming her door. “Seatbelt,” she barked.

Quentin applied it with shaking hands. He was crashing, hard, but the edges of the pain were beginning to soften. Whatever Poppy had given him was good stuff, slowing his heart and softening the edges of the panic. He melted into it gratefully as the cop drove quickly but carefully through the dark streets.

She pulled up outside of his building minutes later, putting the car in park but not cutting the engine. Not looking at Quentin, she asked, “You into this? Pain?”

Quentin glanced at her stern profile. He was still shaking, even through the growing warmth. “Yeah,” he lied, “love it.”

She snorted, her hands tightening on the wheel. “Sure.”

He winced. “Don't tell Jules.”

“Jules?”

“Please.”

She looked troubled, cutting the smallest looks at him, there and away, butterfly touches on his skin. “That happen often?”

Quentin shrugged, feeling small. He looked down, head hanging. Blood was soaking through his jeans, not really visible against the black. “Not really.” Another lie.

She sighed. Handed him a card. It was just one word, Kady, and a cell number. “Call me if you need me.”

“For what?”

“Are you damaged? Shit like this, obviously.”

“You’re not going to tell her?”

Another sigh. “For now.”

“Thank you.” His voice was a small, pathetic thing. “Thank you.”

She shrugged, looked bitter. He climbed out of the car, gingerly, his bare feet cringing from the cold pavement, and went upstairs. She’d driven away by the time he got through the main door of his building. 

He limped slowly up the stairs, and back into his shitty apartment. He didn’t feel the usual burst of relief at being back here, at being safe. Maybe because Pete had taken him from here, had proved he wasn’t safe here at all. 

Exhaustion dragged at him, but his nerves still felt jangled, rough. He drank half a bottle of cough syrup in two long drags, lit a joint with shaking fingers. Layered on top of Poppy’s mystery pill, the growing warmth in his belly became an overwhelming, swooping thing. Feeling a touch dizzy, he staggered into his bathroom and pulled out his first aid kit - a yellow plastic box with a faded red cross stamped on the front. It was heavier than he remembered, and he shoved the whole thing in the sink and opened it hesitantly.

It had been restocked. New things he’d never bothered with had been added, boxes of sterile gauze, bandages, ointments. Eliot, he thought, and his heart squeezed.

The blood had started to dry, and he peeled his jeans down in slow, painful increments. His thigh was a mess, deep, criss-crossing gashes from his groin halfway down to his knee, all of it smeared with drying blood. He shrank at the sight of it. His hands took up their shake again. He dragged deeply at the joint, and set to work. 

In a lot of ways, Quentin was very good at wound care. He’d had enough practice, knew how to clean a wound so it wouldn’t rot, how to bind a wound so it wouldn’t scar. He'd just sort of hoped to never need that knowledge again.

First he scrubbed out the cuts with hot water and soap, hissing at the pain but forging ahead anyway. He scrubbed his whole thigh twice, until the skin was red and the cuts bleeding freely, squeezing his eyes shut and biting his lip until it, too, bled. A couple of the deeper cuts probably needed stitches, the skin gaping apart with every small movement. He found a few butterfly bandages in the kit, felt … cared for, warmed by Eliot's thoughtfulness as he pieced them carefully over the deep cuts, forcing the skin back together. He squeezed a whole tube of polysporin directly over the swelling, weeping cuts without touching them. Then he smeared out the ointment by laying out thick gauze pads, and wrapped those with lengths of sterile gauze, and then an ace bandage, snugly, to keep it all in place. 

When he was done, the joint was just a stub, and the shaking was worse. He tossed the stub into the toilet, not bothering to flush it down, and he limped back to his couch and laid down carefully, adjusting his leg until he could lie there without too much pain. Then he wrestled a blanket over himself, put on some Chatwin’s Torrent, his favorite _Fillory and Further_ fan band, and tried to fall asleep.

But whatever Poppy had given him was shifting from steady warmth into something far more unsettling. As he lay on his couch, the music swelled around him and, to his eyes, seemed to manifest on the walls in shifting colors. He watched them move with the beat, different notes becoming different colors, rainbows arching across the small space, at first with a sense of wonder. But as the music wore on, something about the colors changed. His apartment seemed smaller, even, than usual, the colors closer. He scooted back on the couch, huddling in his blanket, the colors no longer a rainbow but a melange of disquieting, muddy tones that seemed almost … sentient, like maybe they were watching him back, colors of dirt and blood and bruises rising around him in a swirl ...

Finally, it stopped. He collapsed back onto the couch, and drifted away on strains of Fillory that crept into his unsettled dreams.

* * *

Beeping. Loud, piercing his skull and rattling his spine. A groan. His. He flailed an arm, fought free of the blanket, fumbled on the coffee table for his phone. 

“Hello?” he whispered.

“Message to run, messenger.” Pete, gloating and loud. Quentin cringed away from the sound. “Get down here.”

His phone also showed two missed calls from Julia, three from Eliot. He felt a pang at that.

Moving slowly, Quentin groaned his way off the couch and pulled on a loose pair of sweats, a soft long-sleeved black tee, and his favorite hoodie, embroidered with small geese in a V across the back. One leg of the black sweats, cuffed at the ankle, had hiked up nearly to the knee. He just left it, and pulled on his battered gray Converse. He grabbed his bag, swigged some cough syrup, and went.

It felt like a longer two blocks to the club than usual, as he limped through midday crowds and flinched at the splinters of sunlight that made it down past the buildings. His head felt too big for his body, and his leg throbbed with every heartbeat, every step, every breath.

A block from the club, walking with his head down, Quentin was knocked aside by a rough shoulder. He staggered, nearly went down. “Hey!” he started, but whoever it was had already vanished into the swift-moving crowd. Quentin rubbed his arm where the man had run into him, felt sorry for himself, kept going

As he got closer, his hands worked at the leather strap of his bag, running up and down, up and down, a steady, rhythmic motion as he worried that this might not be a typical message, but another horror fest at his expense.

The club was dark and still when he got there. He crept into that dark, feeling anxiety press down on him with every step inside. The club always seemed eerie in these pre-opening hours, the lights down and the stage and booths shrouded in black shadows.

Out of these shadows loomed Pete, letter in hand. Smirking at Quentin's somewhat pathetic appearance, he shoved the letter against Quentin's chest. “Get a reply soonest.”

“I can just go?”

Pete snorted. “Go on, get.”

Quentin dashed to freedom, letter held tightly in his hands. He got an Uber to the diner, not really thinking about anything but seeing Eliot again. The driver was playing Queen, and gave him a mint and a sympathetic look. The mint was more useful, and Quentin was sucking on it when he pushed through the diner’s doors.

Penny was behind the counter, and peered at him oddly, an almost puzzled look on his face, taking in the sweatpants, one leg hiked up, the visible bruises. Quentin waved him off, dashing around the corner to Eliot's booth.

And there he was.

Quentin paused, feeling unaccountably relieved. Eliot looked the same as always, elegant three piece suit (charcoal gray over a lavender shirt), black curls perfectly tousled. He was scowling, though, and speaking on the phone. Quentin held back, didn't try to listen in. Eliot spat words, voice to quiet to carry but his anger clear from the line of his shoulders, the crease between his brows.

Quentin shrank in on himself, not meaning to, but affected nonetheless by Eliot's show of anger.

After a few minutes, Eliot hung up the phone, and looked up. Quentin could tell when he was spotted - Eliot's expression went blank, then lightened. “Quentin,” he called, raising one hand in welcome. 

Quentin limped over, the cuts burning, knew when Eliot noticed that, too. “I'm okay,” he said preemptively. “Another message.”

Eliot's lips flattened to a thin line, but he took the letter, didn't say anything. Quentin stood uneasily, unsure how Eliot would react.

Eliot read for a moment, then crumpled the letter into a very small ball. “You know what this says?”

“No,” Quentin admitted, twisting his fingers in the hem of his hoodie, focusing more of the scratch of embroidery than his own fear.

Eliot's eyes softened. “Come here, sugar,” he said, and patted the bench next to him.

Quentin went, scooting into the bench with exaggerated care. Eliot tucked him under one arm, kissed his hair. Quentin asked, “What, um, what's wrong?”

Eliot sighed. “The singer you watched at our club,” he said slowly, “has gone missing.”

“Oh,” Quentin managed, feeling a pang. She'd been nice to him, that one time. And she sang so nicely. “Do you know, uh.”

“Not yet, sweetheart.” Eliot pressed another kiss to his hair and, feeling bolder, Quentin stretched his neck up and kissed Eliot in return. “So sweet,” Eliot said, smiling.

Quentin laid his head on Eliot's shoulder. He'd had such a bad night, and his morning hadn't looked much better. But here, tucked under Eliot's arm, Quentin felt … cared for. Or not alone, at least. It was enough.

Penny approached Eliot's booth after a few minutes, his expression still slightly odd. Ignoring Eliot, who was back on the phone though with someone else, someone he wasn't mad at, and asked Quentin, “You hungry, man?”

Quentin nodded hesitantly. “Do you have mac and cheese?” he asked, biting his lip. Another unimpressive choice, but he just wanted something comforting. 

“ _Do_ we,” Penny said, voice unexpectedly kind. “It'll be just a minute.”

“Thanks.”

Penny shrugged it off, looking sort of uncomfortable. As he walked away, Eliot, still on the phone, pressed his cheek to the top of Quentin's head. The small, affectionate gesture filled Quentin's chest, and he leaned further into Eliot.

Eliot talked on the phone for a while longer, to different people. Quentin listened to his tone more than the words, listened for tension in it, for anger, the small spots of softness as he checked in with people he trusted. He worked steadily while Quentin rested next to him, while Quentin ate perfectly gooey mac and cheese, while Quentin napped after eating, leaning into Eliot’s side and clutching the lapel of Eliot’s suit. 

Penny came by a few more times. Quentin tracked his coming and going through a sleepy sort of haze, resting semi-contentedly in the crook of Eliot’s arm.

The day passed. The light shifted and changed. A few people came in, ordered, left, never approaching the back booth or even the seating nearby. Quentin dozed, and listened to Eliot’s deep, comforting voice. 

“Hey, sugar,” came that rich voice.

“Mm.”

“You doing okay?”

Quentin looked up at him, smiled sleepily. “Mmhm.”

Eliot kissed his forehead. “I’m done with work, sugar.”

“Oh.” Quentin sat up a little, waking himself up. “I can, uh, I can go …”

Eliot put one finger over his mouth. “I’m inviting you back to my place.”

Quentin blinked. Eliot’s finger was still over his mouth, and felt slightly odd when Quentin smiled. “Oh,” he said softly.

Eliot dragged his finger over Quentin’s lower lip, then moved that hand to run through Quentin’s hair. “Is that a yes?”

Quentin nodded, unspeakably pleased.

* * *

They walked together to Eliot’s building, since it was so close to the diner, close enough for Quentin to disguise his limp. Eliot kept the penthouse, and they entered an elevator that required a key before the top button lit up.

“Do you want to press the button?” Eliot asked indulgently.

Quentin shifted, but sheepishly nodded, and pressed the button. It depressed with a satisfying clunk. Eliot smiled at him, and Quentin shuffled his feet as the elevator ascended. Up and up, twenty-one floors in all, so smoothly and quickly that Quentin’s ears popped. The doors opened directly into the penthouse, and Quentin stepped into it, awed.

Like the car, Eliot’s apartment was unbearably tasteful. Minimalist, antique pieces, real materials, plush carpets. “Wow,” Quentin said, looking around, not knowing what else to say, or how to identify the things he saw.

Eliot’s arm wrapped around him. “All part of the facade,” he admitted. “You can learn aesthetic discernment, but you don’t have to.”

“You don’t want me to, um, fit in? Better?” he asked, staring at the view from the wide glass windows, the city lighting up as darkness fell.

“You’re just right as you are, sugar.” Eliot kissed his hair, then walked over to a small side table (it was fancier than that, somehow, but Quentin didn’t know another way to describe it), and pulled out a small pouch and a few papers. “Now, how tense are you feeling?”

Quentin eyed the pot interestedly. “Pretty tense.”

Eliot grinned. “Alright then.”

Eliot led Quentin over to a beautiful sofa, and they sat together while Eliot rolled a large joint, Quentin watching his every move, Eliot’s long, elegant fingers, his pink tongue licking the edge of the paper, his dark eyes glancing at Quentin, filled with a sort of mischievous amusement. Eliot lit the joint, Quentin watching the hollowing of his cheeks, the wetness of his lips. When Eliot passed the joint over, Quentin took a deep drag, holding the smoke in his lungs with the ease of long practice. 

“Woah, Coldwater, go easy,” Eliot said, but he was laughing, lines crinkling around his eyes in an extremely pleasing way. Quentin smiled back, passed over the joint, exhaled extravagantly. Eliot nodded appreciatively at the cloud, and took his own drag. He didn't hold the smoke as long as Quentin had, but when he breathed out, the smoke wasn't just a cloud but rather formed shapes and curls in the air.

“Wow,” Quentin said, and giggled. Eliot handed over the joint with a challenging lift of his brow, and Quentin drew deeply, then pursed his lips and blew, fluttering his tongue as he did. The smoke emerged in a wavering line, like a cartoon image of a snake, all bends.

“Very nice,” Eliot said, and pulled Quentin into a kiss.

Quentin climbed into his lap, straddling his strong thighs and kissing down into his mouth. Eliot's big hand came up to cup the back of his neck, so gently, his grip firm and grounding. Quentin groaned into his open mouth, clutching at Eliot's shoulder, brushing a knuckle across the soft skin of his neck, running tentative, careful fingers through Eliot's thick, curly hair. 

In spite of his care, his fingers caught, tugging, and he flinched back, prepared for retaliation. 

But Eliot just made a low, throaty sound, and said, “Do that again.”

“You're not mad?”

“I'm not mad. I liked it.” Eliot paused. “Come here, sweetheart.”

He pulled Quentin into another kiss, so gently, and Quentin melted into the care, into Eliot's strong arms, into sloppy kisses that tasted of pot, to be honest, but neither one of them cared, Eliot kissing Quentin's jaw and down his neck, Quentin tugging gently at Eliot's hair to hear him purr. 

Eliot's hands slid down his back, grabbed his ass. He arched into the hold, feeling it go straight to the center of him, hearing himself moan without realizing he’d made a sound. 

The Eliot slid his hand around to Quentin’s crotch, and the world vanished.

_blink_

Quentin was on the floor.

_blink_

Someone was whimpering. 

_blink_

Eliot was leaning over him, looking concerned.

Quentin’s thigh hurt.

_blink_

“Quentin?”

_blink_

“I’m, I’m fine, I.” Quentin was by the door. He did not remember getting up. “I need to go.”

Eliot was standing a few feet away, one hand outstretched but not coming any closer. “Quentin, I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s fine, you didn’t do anything, uh, wrong,” Quentin stammered, “I just, I gotta go, I gotta …” 

Eliot held up both hands as if in surrender. It was the last thing Quentin saw as the doors closed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin realizes he needs a little help, and goes to an old friend.

Quentin was panicking.

He’d been right before, he’d needed time to heal before he saw Eliot. And that was before Marina had carved him up. Going over too soon had just fucked everything up, convinced Eliot that he was a complete freak.

He couldn’t stay here. Marina could send Pete to drag him into the club at any time, and he just. He couldn’t face that. He could go to his dad’s house, maybe … He did spend most of his profits keeping the taxes up to date. But Jules would be able to find him there, and he just couldn’t deal with the whole snitching thing right now. 

He couldn’t deal with anything right now.

He threw a few things in a duffle, slung his leather bag over his shoulder, and caught an Uber to the nearest motel that took cash.

* * *

It was a Monday. 

Quentin only knew that it was a Monday because the people across the hall had a screaming fight about the Giants, who had apparently lost to the Steelers, the words carrying clearly through the thin motel walls. Quentin really didn’t care, and tried smothering himself beneath a pillow. 

He’d lost a week to this. 

They were still screaming. Quentin gave up on hiding, and wrestled out of the blanket, falling off the bed in the process. His pained groan was muffled, the slap of his skin against the cheap wooden side table louder. He pulled himself up onto unsteady feet and stumbled to the small, grimy bathroom. Checking in the mirror, he couldn't see any bruises. He peeled back the dressing on his thigh. The cuts were pink, healing nicely. He smeared on more ointment, rewrapped his thigh.

He needed to eat something.

He'd been living off of takeout and delivery, but opening the mini-fridge, he gazed on a nearly empty interior. His stomach growled. He rested his head on the open door for just a moment. 

A blinking caught his eye. He glanced over, and saw his phone on the small kitchen counter.

The battery was sitting at one percent, the message alert blinking merrily. 

“Fourteen voice mails?” he moaned, thumbing through the menus. Julia, Julia, the club's number a few times, Eliot.

Quentin opened Eliot's message.

“I came by a few times,” Eliot's message said, his voice a little strange and sad. “I hope you'll call me. I'm worried about you.”

Quentin saved the message, wiped at his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered.

He scrolled down to the next message, one from the club's general number - but his phone gave a mournful beep, and died.

“Shit,” he muttered, looking around. His charger had to be somewhere. Surely he remembered to bring it with him.

He looked over the counter, the small table by the bed, the floor. Nothing. 

Getting stressed, he pulled out a bottle of cough syrup and turned it up. A single drop came out, landing on his tongue. He shook the bottle, but it was dry.

He threw the bottle to the floor, sighing, and dug through his bag for another bottle. 

There wasn’t another bottle. 

“Oh my god,” Quentin whispered. 

There wasn’t another bottle. 

“What am I gonna do?” He paced a small line past the couch, his hands tugging at his hair.

He didn’t have anything left back at his apartment, he’d sold out to Darren and then brought everything he had left with him. And he couldn’t go back to the club, he just couldn’t. Not after what had happened. 

His thoughts went back to his dad’s razor. Then to the healing cuts on his thigh. He tugged on his hair harder. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He couldn’t go to another dealer from a rival group. Not safely. Not without it getting back to Marina somehow. If she wasn’t already looking to kill him for disappearing on her, she’d surely kill him for betraying her by going to another group.

Maybe another dealer working for Marina, though. He had to know somebody. There had to be somebody. 

Who else dealt for Marina? There was Tick, but he was kind of an asshole. Not for anything he’d done, exactly, Quentin had just never liked the guy. He was so obsequious around Marina that it made Quentin feel .. skeevy. Or something. He couldn’t pin it down, which meant he also didn’t have the kind of relationship with the guy that he would help Quentin slide some product out from under Marina’s nose. 

There was his squirrely cousin. Bertie? Benny? Quentin had talked to him a few times, he was a nice enough guy. But there was Tick, again; Benny might tell his cousin, and Tick would definitely tell Marina. 

He was still pacing. Still pulling on his hair. The pain helped him think. 

Wait, there was Abigail.

Abigail had run most operations before Marina came on. She was a lot older now, but he thought he’d heard that she was still in the business, even if she’d lost a lot of clout. And she’d always been decent to him. 

Leaving his dead phone on the counter, Quentin gathered up his bag, threw on a hoodie, and went to find Abigail.

* * *

A few blocks from the motel, Quentin stumbled over a man's ankle and nearly fell into an open manhole, avoiding it by inches. “Watch it!” Quentin yelped, staggering away from the open hole.

The man he’d tripped over held up both hands as if in surrender, and walked off. Quentin watched him go, wrapping his arms around his middle. It started to rain. Quentin sighed, reoriented himself, walked on.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Rafe asked, his eyes darting from side to side as if to see whether Quentin had been followed.

Quentin stood half in the rain. “I need to see Abigail.” A shiver rocked him, and he leaned a little closer. “Is she in?”

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “Why should she?”

Quentin bit his lip, avoided Rafe’s glare. “I just need to talk to her, please?”

“And _she’s_ got nothing to do with this?”

Quentin darted a quick glance up. “Just me, Rafe. It’s just me.”

Rafe sniffed, but opened the door and stood to the side, letting Quentin scurry in out of the drizzle. Quentin shook one foot, splattering the kickplate. “Stop that,” Rafe snapped, tossing Quentin a towel.

As Quentin dried off, he looked around the small, sixth-floor walk-up to which Abigail had been consigned - it was much larger than his place, several rooms with high ceilings, rich, gleaming floors. But the furnishings were on the shabby side, cozy rather than chic. Comfortable, lots of cushions, chenille throws, potted plants, a bird cage with two lovebirds chittering softly in one corner. 

Rafe snatched the towel back, and shoved Quentin toward the large, plush sofa that dominated the living room. “Wait there,” he said, still scowling, and strode down the hallway to one of the other rooms.

Quentin sat gingerly on the sofa, shoulders hunched, elbows propped on his knees. The lovebirds chattered and cooed. There was a fan somewhere, stirring air through the room; Quentin listened to the muffled patter of rain, shivered.

There was a clicking. Shuffling sounds. 

Around the corner, Abigail emerged. Hunched over, she inched forward with the aid of an elaborately carved wooden cane. The head of the cane appeared to be an animal head done in gold, but it was obscured by her hand, its blue veins and enlarged knuckles. Rafe hovered by her anxiously, moving at her speed, not actually touching her but looking ready to lunge forward at the least sign of a slip or stumble. 

Quentin watched her approach at a glacial pace, wondered if he should say something - and sat there, frozen, torn between impulses. 

The birds chirped excitedly. With Rafe hovering by her side, Abigail made her slow way to the recliner placed across from the sofa, and lowered herself into it with a sort of weary sigh. She adjusted the half-moon spectacles over her eyes, and looked at Quentin with a phlegmatic sort of resignation. “What’re you doing here, kid?”

The head of the cane was a snake, realistically depicted. Quentin shifted nervously. “How, uh, how have you been, Abigail?”

She snorted, waved one palsied hand. “Don’t kiss my ass, kid, just tell me what you’re bothering me for.”

Rafe glared at him. Quentin’s fingers worked together, twisting and squeezing. “I, um. I’m out of product.”

Abigail blinked at him for a moment that seemed to last forever. Finally, she asked, “Aren’t you selling for Marina now?”

A look crossed Rafe’s face that Quentin couldn’t quite read. 

“Yeah, I uh, I’m.” Quentin stammered. The breeze stirred through the apartment again, and he shivered. “I just. Can’t go- go back there. Right now.”

Abigail’s green eyes narrowed behind those half-moon glasses. “Rafe, go make me a coffee.”

Rafe glared at Quentin one last time, but left the room quickly.

Abigail leaned a touch closer. “What’s she been doing, honey?”

Quentin felt his face heating. “I don’t, I shouldn’t.”

“Won’t leave this room,” she promised, her rough voice gentler than he’d heard it since. Probably since his dad ....

“She hurts me,” he whispered.

When he glanced up, Abigail looked … solemn. A little sad. 

And Quentin felt a visceral shock at being so instantly believed. 

“I’m not surprised,” Abigail said wearily. “She’s a hungry young thing.” Working slowly, she fought to her feet, relying heavily on the cane. Quentin jumped up, reached out to help, but Abigail waved that hand again. “Sit down, kid, and tell me what you need.”

Quentin sat. “Um, cough syrup with, um, codeine. For, for me,” he admitted.

She paused. “Didn’t I tell you not to get addicted to your own stash?”

“Yes,” he whispered, face burning. 

“Hmph. What else?”

“I mostly sell pills,” he shrugged. “Nothing big-time. Xanax is my most popular, weed, obviously, a little phenergan, adderall, some ecstasy but that hasn’t been selling lately.”

“Hm.” Her eyes narrowed again. “I can get you the weed, some of the pills. Xanax, certainly.” She started tapping away, slowly, on her cane, and Quentin moved to follow. She waved him back down. “Just wait there, kid, I’ll be right back.”

Quentin settled back into the sofa. Listened to the birds, the rain. Picked at the knees of his sweats. Worried about what he was doing. He didn’t officially owe Marina money from his sales - that debt was paid with his body. But he hadn’t been paying in that way, either.

She was going to be so pissed.

He was shaking by the time Abigail shuffled slowly back into the room, biting the insides of his cheeks bloody to keep himself on the sofa. She was holding a large brown paper sack, like a take-out bag, and he stared at it fixedly as she approached. She shook the bag, rattled its contents. “Gimme a cut,” she said, tossing the bag at him. “Thirty percent. I’ll square it with Marina.”

Quentin caught the bag against his stomach. “Are you sure? I don’t want to make trouble for you.”

“Pah, trouble.” Abigail lowered herself shakily back into her chair. “Put that away, kid, what’re you doing?”

Quentin started, stuffed the bag into one of the hoodie’s pockets, the paper and its contents crinkling and rustling in the quiet space. The birds fluttered and chirped. “Thanks, Abigail.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid. You hungry?” she asked as Rafe entered the room with a tray laden with a silver coffee pot, cups, and a plate of sandwiches.

Quentin’s stomach growled, reminding him how his day had begun. “Oh, yes, please.”

* * *

Quentin bought a new charger cable and some groceries on his way back to the motel, trudged up the short flight of stairs with two brown paper bags, almost soaked through, one full of drugs. He floated on a fresh wave of codeine, and barely noticed the cold, or the trail he left across the balcony.

When he finally made it to his room, though, something seemed off.

He stopped. The bag of groceries fell from his suddenly lax grip. His door was open, just a crack.

Maybe he hadn’t locked it behind him.

But he always locked his door, especially at sketchy motels. And the cleaning lady always came by around 11, like clockwork.

He edged forward, clinging onto the sack full of drugs as if to protect it, or as if it could protect him. He banged through the door - and Julia looked up from where she sat on the edge of the shitty bed.

She was hunched in on herself, and she’d been crying.

“Jules?”

Julia met his rush forward, sweeping him into a tight hug. “You’re okay,” she whispered, her face pressed against his shoulder. “You’re okay, I thought.”

“I’m okay, I’m sorry, I saw you called but my phone died, I was out buying a new cable,” Quentin babbled, stroking her back.

She pulled back and hit him, not very hard, her face tear-streaked. “You can’t just disappear on me, Quentin!”

“Sorry,” he murmured, shrinking in on himself. “How did you even find me?”

“I’m a detective!” she yelled, smacking his shoulder.

“Right, sorry, I just.”

“No, I just.” Julia blew out a breath, running both hands through her long, wild hair. “A body turned up. Red hair, pale. Jesus, I thought it was Reynard.”

Quentin thought very briefly of that night in Marina’s office. “It wasn’t?”

She shook her head. “Looked almost exactly like him, though.” She was shivering, and wrapped her arms around herself, edging a little further away from Quentin. “I really thought, for a second, that it was over.”

“I, um. I’m sorry. That it wasn’t him.”

She laughed brokenly. “Me, too.” She was pacing now. “First a body, and now there’s some nightclub singer missing, and I think they’re connected but I can’t prove it …”

Quentin wondered if she were talking about the singer from Eliot’s club, or if there was another missing woman out there. 

Julia threw herself back onto the bed, put her head in her hands. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Quentin approached her hesitantly. “What about your plan? Your undercover officer?”

Julia sniffed. “That could take months. Kady says she’s barely making progress, Marina sends her home half the time.”

Quentin thought of times she hadn’t been sent home, shivered. “I’d better get my groceries put away,” he muttered, and retrieved the dropped bag from the hall.

Julia watched this with a watery interest. “You went grocery shopping?” She looked around then. “And since when do you cook?”

Her voice was incredulous in a way that made Quentin’s shoulders hike up around his neck. “Not really, just trying some things.”

“And what are you doing here? This place is a shithole.”

“You’re the detective,” he tried, fiddling with the grocery sack.

“Quentin, seriously. What’s going on?” She looked concerned again, and touched his arm. “Q, you can talk to me. Are you in trouble with Marina again?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, shrugging. “I, uh. I needed to hide out for a while.”

Julia sniffed. “I can get you into witsec,” she said tremulously, pulling out her cell. “Let me just make a few calls.”

“No, hey, wait,” Quentin blurted, dropping the groceries onto the small counter and grabbing her arm. “I’m not, I mean, I don’t need to vanish. I just … I needed a break, okay?”

“Even from me?”

He winced, but nodded. “It all just got … overwhelming.”

“Oh, Q.”

They sat on the edge of the bed together, and she put an arm around his shoulders. “If this is too much for you …” she began.

“No!” He swallowed. “I want to help you. You deserve, you know, justice. I just needed, um, a few days. Marina can be a little intense.”

“Yeah, Kady mentioned,” Julia said, then snorted wryly. “She sounds like a real ballbreaker.”

“Yep,” Quentin said nervously, “that’s her.”

“So you’re not going to have any problems?” Julia asked, leaning over to rest her cheek on his shoulder. “Going back?”

“I, um.” He didn’t want to go back. “No, I’ll. I’ll square it with her. I guess.”

“Thank you, Q.” Julia sniffed again, and he put his arm around her waist, pulling her a little closer. “I don’t know if I could do this without you.”

And he was trapped. He would have to go back.

“You won’t have to,” he promised. “I’ll be there.”

They sat like that for a while. His groceries were melting, but he didn’t move. Jules needed him, and that was that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot and Quentin go on a real date.

Julia gave him a hug before she left, told him to be careful. It made Quentin feel strange. Cherished, but like a sacrifice is cherished, protected up until that final moment.

It was what he deserved, really.

He took a shower, put on his favorite pink T-shirt with little white polka dots, faded black jeans, and his gray hoodie with embroidered geese, and went to see Poppy.

He made a quick walk of it, energized by the food and company. His thigh was feeling better, barely twinging as he marched toward his possible death.

The sun had come back out, though the wind was getting closer to cold than brisk. He huddled into his hoodie, gazed at the turning leaves on the small ornamental trees, the swift-moving clouds. The sidewalks were still wet, and he splashed through a couple of puddles. Around three blocks from the club, Quentin paused, feeling a strange sensation run down his spine. The light ahead of him turned, and he looked behind him, seeing the usual crowd of blank-faced strangers, heads down, in a hurry. Nothing unusual.

So he shrugged, and crossed the street.

When he got to the club, it was darkened, still closed for the day. He hesitated out front, not sure if he should go in. It really hadn’t worked out last time.

If Poppy were there, he needed to see where he stood, if Abigail really had squared things with Marina.

But the club was dark, and when he crept inside, also empty.

He wrapped his arms about his middle, peering around the eerie, empty space. He wondered briefly where Poppy could be, before deciding he’d rather not know.

Back out in the weak autumn sunlight, he took a deep breath. He could try again tonight.

In the meantime, he thought, maybe Eliot would be glad to see him.

* * *

When he got to EM’s Diner, the excitement was almost too much. He hadn’t seen Eliot in a week. Was that too long? Would Eliot be mad? But he’d healed up, maybe they could finally have sex. If Eliot still wanted to. What if he’d ruined it?

Excitement twisting into nerves, he opened the door.

“There you are,” Penny snapped.

Quentin jumped back, and the door nearly swung shut on him. Penny caught it with one strong hand. “Where the hell have you been?” Penny continued, grabbing Quentin’s elbow (though his grip was surprisingly gentle) and pulling him into the diner. “The boss has been worried.”

“S, sorry,” Quentin stammered, not sure what to make sure of Penny’s stern exterior and gentle hands. “I, uh. Got mugged again, and -”

“No, you didn’t.” Penny didn’t say anything else, just dragged Quentin around the counter. Penny was glaring at him, but Quentin’s attention was on the man sitting in the back booth. Penny sighed. “Just don’t disappear on him again.”

“I won’t,” Quentin promised carelessly, and dashed off, barely noticing that Penny let him go.

He took a few steps toward Eliot, and stopped, frozen suddenly, not sure how he’d be received.

But Eliot looked up, and when he saw Quentin, he looked. Relieved. And he stood up, and went out to meet Quentin, and said, “There you are.” Like Quentin had been delivered to him, something precious.

“Here I am,” Quentin said, his voice quavering just a little.

Eliot held out both arms, and Quentin dove into the hug, pressing his face to Eliot’s chest. And Eliot held him tightly, like he really had been worried. 

“Sorry,” Quentin mumbled.

Eliot kissed his hair, said, “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Quentin squeezed his eyes shut, tried to focus on Eliot’s heart thumping steadily beneath his ear, Eliot’s warm smell heady in his nose. “You didn’t. It wasn’t, it wasn’t you.”

Eliot held him at arm’s length, eyebrows pinched together. “I wish you'd tell me what's wrong.”

Quentin's face was hot. “I don't, I mean, it's not really your problem. We just met, really.”

Eliot tucked him under one arm. “I bond fast,” he said airly, drawing Quentin back to his booth. “Time is an illusion, et cetera.”

Sliding in next to Eliot, Quentin found himself actually thinking about telling Eliot about Marina, about Julia, about everything. 

The impulse sent a shiver of fear through him, twisted at the thing in his stomach. He pressed against Eliot's side, and let Eliot pet his hair soothingly, and held his fucking tongue.

“Thank you,” Quentin said, “but I can handle it.”

He wasn't sure how Eliot would take that, but Eliot said, “Let me know if that changes, hm?”

And Quentin agreed. It was little enough to give, he thought.

“Let's get out of here,” Eliot suggested. 

Quentin was reluctant to give up his warm spot next to Eliot, but nodded. “Where to?”

“I have a wine tasting scheduled for later today, if you'd like to come along. Then I thought dinner.”

“That sounds really nice,” Quentin said, though he felt just a twinge of nerves about the wine tasting. He didn't know anything about wine, other than whether he thought it tasted okay. But Eliot had said he could just be himself. Maybe he really could be.

* * *

They took Eliot's car to a fancy looking wine shop across the river. Walking in, Quentin saw the original wood floors, brass fittings, antique oak bar, bottles in wooden racks. Eliot looked like he belonged there, like he fit in, his elegant suit a mirror to the elegant shop. Quentin felt very out of place in his pink tee and gray hoodie, though the shop was so classy that the staff took their disparate appearances in stride. A middle aged man approached with a beaming smile, spread both arms in welcome, and said, “Ah, monsieur Waugh, it has been too long!”

Eliot smiled warmly, though he didn't unwind his arm from Quentin's. “Tony, you old dog. How's Claudette?”

“As beautiful as ever,” Tony said, his accent making the words a little hard for Quentin to make out. His French had always been terrible. “I have something very special for you, come, come.”

They were guided to the bar, and they sat on the padded leather stools as Tony took his place across from them, setting out several glasses, wiping each with the white cloth kept in the pocket of his apron. He kept up a genial patter with Eliot, directing a few comments toward Quentin but respecting that Eliot hadn't offered an introduction.

Tony pulled out a bottle of wine with a flourish, and then described it in ways that didn't make much sense to Quentin, and so which didn't stick in his head, stuff about flavors he really wouldn’t associate with something a person would even want to drink, oak aromas and tobacco notes, as he poured small measures into two glasses. Eliot took one of the glasses, swirled the wine while watching it intently, sniffing it, and then taking a small mouthful. He rolled the liquid around in his mouth, expression not changing. “It’s nice,” he said finally. “A little heavy on the tannins for my tastes. Quentin?”

Quentin had been watching Eliot, not his own wine, and when Eliot turned to him he grabbed the glass and tossed it back. The wine hit his tongue, and he tried swishing it about to see if that made a difference. He grimaced. “It’s very, um, acidic.”

“Yes, exactly,” Eliot said, pleased. 

Quentin glowed at the praise, and finished off his glass.

“Oh,” Eliot said, reaching out in an aborted move. “You aren’t supposed to, hm.”

“What?” Quentin asked, panicking internally. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Nothing, sugar.” Eliot leaned over and kissed him, and Quentin melted into the touch. Finally Eliot pulled back, and continued, “You don’t have to finish off the wine, if you don’t like it.”

Quentin, still a little dazed from the kiss, looked down at his empty glass. “Oh, okay.” He hated to think of wasting anything, but maybe it would be alright, if Eliot said it was.

Tony watched this interplay, and stepped in smoothly to pour from the next bottle. “This one I think you will like, it is very rare from the Haut Medoc region.”

“I love a good Medoc,” Eliot said, picking up his glass and peering at it.

Quentin tried to mimic him. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. The wine was - red. Or purple, sort of. Eliot took a small sip, and Quentin, watching this from the corner of his eye, mirrored him. He tried the swishing again, and rich flavor burst across his tongue.

“Mm,” Eliot said. “Very nice notes of blackberry, cherry, and Tony, was this aged in a bourbon casket?”

“You have the finest palate in the city,” Tony said gleefully. “Yes, aged in oak barrels previously used for bourbon.”

“Quentin, what do you think?”

“It, um. It’s nice? Smooth.” He hadn’t tasted all those things. It tasted like, well, wine. A little fruity maybe.

“Yes, very low in tannins,” Eliot said approvingly, smiling at him.

Quentin felt that warm glow again, and drank the rest of his glass. 

“I’ll take a case,” Eliot said, drinking the rest of his as well.

They went through a few more wines like that. Quentin liked a few, and Eliot ordered cases of those, and some of them Quentin found undrinkable, wrinkling his nose and letting the rest go to waste. They went through six or seven wines in this way, until Quentin was feeling a little tipsy, his cheeks warm.

Then Tony pulled out another bottle, one with a slightly strange shape. “Can I interest you in a dessert wine?”

Eliot made a very small moue of disgust. “Anything for you, Tony.”

Tony poured measures of this wine into very small, delicate glasses. Quentin sipped his, and pure, sweet sugar burst across his tongue. “Mm, that’s good,” he murmured, taking another sip.

Eliot squinted at him through his own mouthful. “You like it?”

Quentin ducked his head. “It’s sweet.”

Eliot’s expression cleared. “Of course it is. Tony, give me a case of this, too.”

“Oh, you don’t have to …” Quentin started.

“I like that you have a sweet tooth,” Eliot said, the corner of his mouth pulling a little, like he wanted to smile but wasn’t sure he should. “You always taste sweet. Like sugar.”

Quentin licked his lips. “Do you, um, want to go back to your place?” he asked breathlessly.

Tony left to put together their order, and Eliot ran a hand through Quentin’s hair. “Dinner, remember?”

“Right,” Quentin breathed. “Dinner.”

* * *

Quentin had wanted a distraction from what he’d have to do, later, and now, tipsy on wine and Eliot, he thought distraction didn’t quite cover it.

The car had taken them back to Eliot and Margo’s club, where Eliot had planned to meet Margo for dinner. She took one look at Quentin’s ensemble, snapped her fingers, and had the curly-haired host whisk him to the back for a wardrobe change.

“My name’s Todd,” the man said, his voice friendly and light as he led Quentin through dark hallways. 

“Um, Quentin.”

“I know,” Todd said, though there was nothing mean about how he said it. “We’ve been told all about you. Nothing but the best, Mr. Waugh insisted.”

“Oh, well, that’s,” Quentin stammered, not sure how to respond.

“Here we are,” Todd said airily, pausing before a door. “Your clothes are inside. Do you want help picking something out?”

“Oh, I can probably …” Quentin started, then paused. Todd, he noticed, was dressed a little like Eliot, in a brightly-patterned shirt complemented by a more sober vest and well-tailored slacks, like a faint echo of Eliot’s usual three-piece suits. “Maybe you could help me?”

“Anything you need,” Todd said eagerly, opening the door and hustling Quentin inside with careful brushes of his hand, never actually touching him.

The room was small, made cozy with plush carpets and rich wall hangings. There was a low sofa, a few side tables and a coffee table, an upholstered chair, and a large, wooden wardrobe that dominated most of the space. Todd opened the wardrobe, revealing a rack of suits hanging beneath a shelf of folded shirts. There were drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe, and Todd pulled them open with a flourish, revealing neatly folded socks, ties, and a tray of cufflinks and watches. 

“What is all this?” Quentin asked. “Does Eliot keep emergency clothes here?”

“No, this is yours,” Todd said casually. “Should all be your size, but let me know if something doesn’t fit. The boss had to guess on a few things.”

“Oh,” Quentin said, stunned. 

Todd began pulling things out, folding them carefully over one arm. “Why don’t you get undressed?”

“Oh, should I? I mean …” Quentin really wasn’t sure of the protocols here. 

“If you’re uncomfortable, I can leave,” Todd offered, not looking at Quentin as he laid out the pieces of an outfit - dark gray trousers in thin wool, a crisp linen shirt the color of the sky, and a darker blue silk tie. 

“Could you give me a minute?” Quentin asked shyly. “And come back for the tie?”

“Of course!” Todd said, endlessly enthusiastic. He set out a pair of brown leather Oxfords, and bustled out of the room.

Quentin undressed slowly, unsure how to feel about this. An entire room of clothes, just for him, just for when they ate here? It seemed, well, extravagant. Unnecessary. Thoughtful, though. 

Part of him wasn’t sure if Eliot’s attention should scare him or not. Compared to Marina, everything about his relationship with Eliot so far had been a dream come true.

He pulled on the silk underwear, the wool trousers, the crisply-ironed linen shirt, and draped the tie around his neck. “Todd?” he called out uncertainly.

Todd opened the door a crack. “You ready?”

“Yeah, just, I don’t really know how to …” Quentin said, gesturing at the tie.

“No problem, man,” Todd said, smiling as he bustled over. He was taller than Quentin, and rather loomed as he took both ends of the tie and started adjusting them. He was peering intently at the length of silk, and Quentin took the time to study his face, the serious frown, the kind brown eyes. Surely if Eliot had nice people like this working for him, he couldn’t be too bad. Not like Marina. 

Quentin shivered at the thought of her, at the hell that was surely coming his way. 

“You okay?” Todd asked, pausing.

“Yeah, fine,” Quentin said roughly. He tried a smile, wasn’t sure it was convincing.

“Hey, is Eliot …” Todd’s mouth slanted to one side. “You want to be here, right?”

Quentin blinked at him. “Yeah, of course! Eliot’s … Eliot’s wonderful. I’m just … it’s other stuff, it’s nothing to do with him, really.”

“Okay,” Todd said, cheerful once again. With a few swift movements that Quentin couldn’t really follow, he crossed part of the tie over itself, made a knot, and then was snugging the knot at Quentin’s throat before Quentin even knew what had happened. “There, you’re all done.”

“Thanks,” Quentin said, smoothing his hand over the tie.

“No problem!”

“No, I mean …” Quentin sighed. “Just, thanks.”

Todd nodded, still smiling, and opened the door. “Let’s get you back to Eliot.”

“Yes, please.”

When he walked back into the dining room of the club he felt more like he belonged there, less sheepish and self-conscious as Todd led him to Eliot and Margo’s table. Todd parted the curtain, and Quentin saw Eliot’s head bowed in conversation with Margo, and then Eliot’s head came up, and he saw Quentin and his eyes got wide. 

“He cleans up nice,” Margo said dryly.

Quentin almost didn’t hear her. Eliot held out one hand, and Quentin rushed back to his side, sliding into the circular booth with a not surprising eagerness. “You look really good,” Eliot said, staring at him.

“Thanks,” Quentin murmured. “You, um. Thank you for the, well, these.”

“Anything you need,” Eliot said, echoing what Todd had claimed earlier. “Hungry?”

“A little,” Quentin said, eyeing the empty wine glass in front of his place.

“Thirsty, more like,” Margo said, reaching over to pour him a glass.

Her tone was a bit snide, but he took the offered wine and drained half the glass right away, relaxing into the influx of warmth. He set the glass down, and leaned trustingly into Eliot’s side, shifting as Eliot wound an arm around him.

“Okay, he’s adorable,” Margo allowed, sipping her own wine more slowly. Her eyepatch was navy blue with silver embroidery, and it glinted in the light. “Are we going to eat or what?”

“Q?” Eliot asked softly.

“Oh, um, can you order for me?”

“Absolutely,” Eliot said, and Quentin thought he seemed pleased.

The button was pressed, summoning a waiter, and Eliot ordered two dishes, Margo ordering for herself. Quentin didn’t even know which language they were ordering in, and didn’t much care, drifting on the heady combination of syrup and wine, and content to press against Eliot’s side and listen to them talk. It was obvious they were old friends, and that in spite of Margo’s acid tongue she trusted Eliot, and was extending that trust to him, at least a little. 

Quentin snuggled with Eliot and drank while they waited for the food to come, and Margo talked to Eliot about their business, legal and illegal, and their strategy for dealing with their missing singer.

“Fen?” he asked, perking up.

“Did you know her, sugar?”

“Not really. We met once, she was nice.”

“I’m glad she was nice to you,” Eliot said, kissing his hair. “She’s been missing for 9 days, now.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not,” Margo snapped. 

“Is there anything I can do?”

“That’s so sweet,” Margo said, her voice somehow both sarcastic and sincere at once.

“No,” Eliot said quickly, “please don’t try to do anything. Just keep yourself safe.”

“Oh, um, I’ll try,” was the best Quentin could manage.

Their food came, then, more inexplicable, overly fancy dishes for Eliot and Margo, and a plate of what looked like spaghetti for Quentin, though it was green rather than red. “Oh, this looks really good,” he lied.

“Just try it, sugar,” Eliot said, watching him with something amused in his eyes.

Quentin took a careful bite, winding the strands around his fork until he had a compact structure, and easing it carefully into his mouth. He was scared to stain the nice clothes Eliot had given him, but all those thoughts vanished as the rich sauce hit his tongue. “Oh wow, what is this?” he asked through a mouthful of pasta.

“That,” Eliot said, smiling, “is a pesto. Arugula and walnut, in this case.”

“It’s really good,” he murmured, scooping up another bite.

“I was hoping you’d like it,” Eliot said, taking a bite of his own meal. Margo was eating something that crunched oddly, and Quentin tried not to listen as he finished his spaghetti. Eliot and Margo kept talking, and Quentin drank most of the bottle of wine, not really listening to them, just enjoying the sounds of their voices.

He drifted away to it, dozing against Eliot’s side. 

After some time had passed, it got quiet again. Quentin roused, sniffing. “El?”

“Hey, Q,” Eliot said warmly. “Want to head home?”

“Mm, yes, please.” Quentin raised up sleepily, blinking around the smalle curtained space. “Where’s Margo?”

“She had other business,” Eliot said, offering Quentin his hand. Quentin took it, let Eliot help him to his feet.

The car took them to Eliot’s building, and they took the fast elevator up to the penthouse. Quentin’s sleepiness had fallen away, and as the elevator rose he vibrated with nerves. 

“We don’t have to do anything,” Eliot said. His voice was very low and soothing, and Quentin wrapped his fingers around three of Eliot’s.

“I want to,” Quentin said firmly. “I really want to.”

In a flash, Eliot pushed him against the wall of the elevator, covered Quentin’s mouth with his, and all Quentin’s nerves flashed fire. His hands tangled in Eliot’s thick hair, their bodies pressed together, Quentin sucked Eliot’s tongue into his mouth and tried to climb the other man.

The elevator doors opened and they staggered out together, still kissing somehow even as Eliot was unbuttoning Quentin’s crumpled linen shirt and working it down over his shoulders. Quentin tore at Eliot’s jacket, his shirt, pulled at his hair. He wanted to be closer, right now. Eliot’s hands slid down his back to grab his ass, pulled Quentin hard against him, ground against Quentin’s belly and Quentin could feel that he was just as hard. Quentin whined, pushed up against him. Eliot stripped him out of the crumpled linen shirt in two swift movements, briefly trapping Quentin’s arms at his sides until he was shaken free, then he pulled off his own shirt in quick, elegant movements.

“Bedroom?” Quentin asked, clinging onto Eliot’s biceps to keep his balance as Eliot’s tugging moved him about.

“You’re brilliant,” Eliot purred, and guided him backwards. Quentin stumbled over his own shirt, nearly went down. Eliot caught him, got his arms beneath Quentin’s thighs and suddenly Quentin was in his arms. 

Quentin squeaked, wrapped his legs around Eliot’s hips, grabbed on to Eliot’s shoulders. Eliot was grinning as they kissed again, and he walked them into the bedroom. Quentin marveled at his strength, the feeling of being held going right to his core. Eliot lowered Quentin to the bed gently, laying him out and crawling onto the mattress after him, over him, bracketing him with his arms. Quentin looked up at him, bit his lip. 

Eliot ran fingers through Quentin’s hair, still smiling gently, and leaned down to capture Quentin’s lips with his. Beneath him on the soft mattress, Quentin didn’t feel smothered, or trapped. He felt … secure. 

He also felt confined by the nice wool pants Eliot had given him. He whined into Eliot’s mouth, shifted his hips. Eliot pulled back a little, smiled. Kissed his way down Quentin’s jaw, his neck. Quentin threw his head back and Eliot nibbled on his collarbone, Quentin moaning and clutching at Eliot’s bare shoulders. “Can’t we, oh, get undressed?” he panted.

“There’s no hurry,” Eliot said, kissing the corner of Quentin’s jaw.

“Maybe there is?” Quentin suggested, winding his fingers in Eliot’s curls, tugging. 

Eliot stopped, looked a little serious. “I don’t want to scare you away again.”

Quentin bit his lip, whined in frustration. “It wasn’t you, before. I promise, please, can we,” he shifted his hips again, “can we do something, anything, please, please, El, please.”

Eliot studied him for a long moment, then something in his eyes softened, and he nodded. “Whatever you want, Q,” he murmured, and leaned down to kiss Quentin while working his hands between their bodies. With quick, clever movements he unbuttoned Quentin’s trousers, and took his hard length in hand, Quentin gasping and pushing up into the touch. 

Eliot’s hand was big, and warm, and he held Quentin like he knew everything about him, fingers gripping his shaft perfectly, thumb rubbing over the head and Quentin couldn’t hold still, thrust up against him, into that perfect grip. 

“Come for me,” Eliot murmured, watching him, still watching him, “come for me, Quentin.” 

And Quentin did, spilling between them in a sudden rush.

Quentin fell back, sucked in deep breaths. “Sorry,” he panted.

“Hey, it's fine,” Eliot said soothingly. “It was hot, sweetheart.”

“But you didn't …”

“Don't worry about that.” Eliot pushed Quentin's hair back from his face. “How do you feel?”

Quentin thought for a moment through the twanging of his nerves. “Good, I think.”

“Then I'm glad.”

Quentin felt his eyebrows crumpling together, but could do nothing to stop it. 

“Hey, now,” Eliot said, “what's this?”

“Why are you so nice to me?” Quenting whispered.

Eliot's expression did something complicated then, becoming warmer but also slightly rueful. “Quentin, I'm not being all that nice.”

“Yes you are,” Quentin shot back. “You're patient, and you're always making sure I've eaten, and you bought all that wine you don't even like, and you got me off without getting anything out of it and I -”

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Eliot said, and Quentin realized he was crying. Eliot pulled Quentin into his arms, and they curled together on the bed. As Quentin sniffled, Eliot said, “I like you. That's it, that's the big mystery. I like you, and I like seeing you happy.”

“Oh,” Quentin mumbled. “I like you, too.”

“I know you do, sugar.” Eliot kissed the top of his head, and Quentin huddled into his solid warmth, and felt safe.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin has a few nice days with Eliot, but there had to be a reckoning eventually.

They fell asleep like that, and Quentin woke in a strange bed and heard Eliot singing in the distance while warm, rich smells of bacon and cooked sugar drifted through the air. 

He sat up, realized he was still in his clothes, winced - but also felt immeasurably grateful that Eliot hadn't undressed him in his sleep. 

He crawled out of the big bed slowly, felt the creases from the nice woolen suit impressed into his skin, the itch of dried semen. He'd had this suit for a day and he'd already ruined it. 

Normally he would spiral over this, he was sure. But crawling out of Eliot's bed, he felt good. Great, even. His spine loose and his head on right.

Rubbing at his epic bedhead, he wandered toward the smell of food, finding a large chef’s kitchen over which Eliot reigned like a magician over a series of complicated spells, moving and stirring and dancing between sink and stove and wide kitchen island. There were stools at the island, and Quentin climbed into one, watching Eliot avidly.

“How do you feel this morning, babe?” Eliot asked, tossing something in a pan.

“Really good,” Quentin said, smiling shyly. “You?”

Eliot glanced at him. “You don’t have to worry about me, sweetheart.”

“Oh.” Quentin ducked his head. “I guess I, um. Sorry.”

Eliot paused, put the pan down. He walked over to Quentin very deliberately, and while Quentin thought everything was probably fine he began to cringe in anticipation anyway, but Eliot just touched his cheek gently. 

“Let’s start over,” Eliot said. “I feel great this morning. I’m looking forward to spending the day with you, if you’re free.”

“I’m, I’m free,” Quentin blurted. “Totally, I mean, completely free.”

Eliot smiled warmly. “Good.” 

Quentin smiled nervously back. He wasn’t really free. He still needed to straighten up the mess with Marina, and his supply, and Abigail. But with Eliot smiling at him like that, he couldn’t plan to be anywhere else.

* * *

After breakfast, they wandered through a small museum in an old converted church. They had the space almost entirely to themselves, and as they moved slowly through the exhibits, they held hands - Quentin feared his might be too sweaty, or clammy, or both, but Eliot’s hand seemed warm in his, and like it fit. 

The art wasn’t what Quentin had expected, if he’d expected anything - a series of pillowcases, decorated with small vignettes on the theme of dreaming, hung from the ceiling so that one had to walk beneath, craning one’s neck, to see each little scene. Eliot pointed out one pillowcase painted in dark colors, a nightmare. Quentin found himself attracted to one done up in glitter and gold, a blue sky in rough acrylics and a rainbow.

Around the edges of the display were X-Ray images of pillowcases printed on metal plates, the black and silver negatives ghostly and repetitive, with slight, eerie differences that made Quentin feel odd. They stopped in front of one, and Quentin leaned into Eliot’s side as he gazed into the dark image. They were reflected in the darkness, by the protective layer of glass, and the placement of the image made it seem as if their heads were laying together on that pillowcase. The odd white thread running through it, though, seemed to split them apart. Quentin shivered, pulled Eliot to the next one. 

They stopped together in front of a large bed sheet, hung on one wall. It was covered in hundreds of names, all in different colors, a rainbow of identifiers. On the wall next to the sheet, a plaque explained that the artists who had volunteered their pillow case vignettes had mailed around this sheet to sign, to emphasize the collaborative nature of the piece. 

“That’s really cool,” Quentin murmured, looking back at the names, the different colors, the different handwriting, with a new perspective. 

“Do you want one of the XRays?” Eliot asked, looking through a pamphlet. “A few of them are still for sale.”

“Oh.” Quentin looked back down the row of X-Ray images. “No, I, um, some of the pillow cases are neat, but …”

Eliot smiled at him, a spontaneous, almost helpless quirk of his lips. “No, of course not. Want to head over to the diner?”

“That sounds good,” Quentin admitted, reaching for Eliot’s hand.

Eliot pocketed the pamphlet, took Quentin’s hand, and they walked together back out onto the street.

The light was almost blinding after the relative dimness inside the small museum, and the chill wind drove Quentin back into Eliot’s side, huddling into Eliot’s larger frame. Eliot shifted their hands, and slung his arm over Quentin’s shoulders, acting as a buffer. Quentin shivered against him gratefully. 

“I need to get some work done at the diner,” Eliot said apologetically.

“It’s okay, I like the diner.”

“I know you do, sugar.” Eliot leaned down and kissed Quentin’s hair. 

Quentin felt an odd shiver move up his spine, almost like he was being watched. From within Eliot’s grasp, he tried to look around - but the people moving past them were typical New Yorkers, not paying attention to him at all. He clung a little tighter to Eliot’s lean waist, and they walked to the diner like that, glued together, moving as one.

* * *

A few days passed like that. Quentin stuck to Eliot’s side, and Eliot seemed delighted to have him there, taking him to museums and art galleries and wine tastings, and then almost every day they ended up at the diner so that Eliot could do some work - whatever it was he did, Quentin didn’t try to find out any more about it - and then back to his penthouse, where Eliot cooked something impressive, and they slept together. Not sex, not since the first time. Just sleeping, so far, and while Quentin was a little frustrated by that, he could tell it was Eliot’s attempt to take care of him, so they curled together in silk sheets and made out sometimes and lit up a few times and Quentin learned Eliot in other moods, silly and indulgent and frustrated and hungry and yet always kind, always loving, so that Quentin felt safer and safer with him. 

Just being in his presence was calming, and Quentin spent a few days hanging out at the front counter at EM’s, waiting for Eliot to finish with his work for the day. He was avoiding Marina, unwisely so, but he couldn’t face her, or the consequences for not showing his face at the Safehouse for a couple of weeks now. The messages on his phone, unlistened to, were piling up. But while he was with Eliot, he could ignore all that, and so he did, happily. 

On this day, Quentin was indulging in a chocolate milkshake, and people watching. There was a young girl, Japanese he thought, sitting in the window with her friends. He noticed her because every time she spoke, she ended her sentence by saying yeah five times, three times very quickly, then twice at a more measured pace: “Yeah-yeah-yeah, yeah, yeah.” Every sentence. It was slightly fascinating, if annoying. 

Quentin sat at the counter ostensibly watching Penny work, but mostly listening to this girl talk to her friends. They were talking about applying to colleges, NYC and Columbia, and Quentin couldn’t help but think that her admissions interview might not go well. In the time he was thinking this, she repeated the pattern of five ‘yeahs’ four more times. It was strangely mesmerizing.

He’d been scheduled to interview for Yale, the graduate philosophy program, when his father had died and his life had fallen apart. He didn’t like to think about his time in the hospital, or what he’d lost, or about his father at all, so he listened to these odd children, heading down the path from which he’d fallen, and thought instead about what their lives could be (if they learned some basics of public speaking). A lot more hopeful than his, he was certain.

Penny moved to help a customer, scowling oddly at Quentin as he passed. Quentin blinked after him curiously, but didn’t otherwise move. 

Then a hand landed on Quentin’s shoulder, a hard grip, and Quentin turned his head to see Pete looming over him.

Everything in him shrank. The chattering of the girls became distant, indeterminate noise. The fragile bones in the joint of his shoulder creaked. 

Pete leaned in really close, and almost in Quentin’s ear said, “Marina wants a word.”

Nodding shakily, Quentin climbed down off the high stool and shifted the strap of his leather bag onto his shoulder. Penny shot him a concerned glance, but Quentin just waved, stiltedly, and then Pete dragged him toward the door. From the back of the diner, Eliot didn’t notice this happen, still scowling down at his laptop. Quentin caught one last glimpse of his tousled hair as he was dragged outside.

The drive back to the Safehouse was completely silent. Pete let Quentin ride inside the car, this time, and Quentin sat in the back seat and stared out through the tinted windows and wished he were going almost anywhere else. Part of him wondered how Pete had tracked him down, what he’d given away. But most of him was too scared to think. He jittered quietly to himself, his knee jigging out a nearly silent tune for the entirety of the short drive. 

Parking behind the club, Pete ordered Quentin out of the car, his voice rough; Quentin scrambled out, and when Pete latched onto his shoulder again and dragged Quentin inside, Quentin didn’t fight it. He didn’t really know how to, or what the point would be. He’d gotten a few days of freedom; now that it was over, he was almost numb to his impending death.

Quentin had never seen the club before opening so often as he had these last few weeks. The still, stale air was becoming almost familiar, the empty halls less eerie and more familiar. That didn’t make it less terrifying, just in a different, more banal way. Their shoes scuffed on the worn carpet, his moreso than Pete’s, and Quentin’s quick, shallow breaths were loud in the quiet space. Pete didn’t falter, or even look down at him, just dragged him inexorably through the hall.

Pete stopped in front of the door to Marina’s office so quickly that Quentin bumped into him, just barely. Pete shook him roughly, hard enough to bruise, then opened the door.

Quentin was shoved inside. Marina’s office looked odd, empty. The desk was missing, the chair. Quentin’s eyes darted about the space. Marina was standing in one corner, by a filing cabinet, an odd look on her face. There were plastic sheets spread across the floor, and there was a bucket in the middle of the room.

“I was beginning to think I’d never see you again,” Marina said, her eyes a little wide. Quentin looked at the bucket, back at Marina. “Where have you been?”

Quentin looked at the bucket. It was green. “Um. Sorry, I just.”

“Just what?” Marina’s voice was small, and odd, almost like a little girl’s, and there was something about it that made Quentin’s skin crawl.

“Needed a break?” he tried. 

“From me?” she asked, still in that little girl lost voice.

Quentin had a sudden, urgent feeling that he should lie his ass off. “No! No, no, no, not you, um, the business. You know. Selling drugs. I was getting … um. Stressed?”

Marina smiled, a strange shape. “I know you don't handle stress very well.”

Quentin laughed nervously. 

“It's okay, now,” Marina said, taking a few steps forward. “I took care of it.”

Quentin was afraid to ask, but did anyway. “What, uh, what do you mean?”

“Look in the bucket.”

He did not want to look in the bucket. 

But he'd learned a long time ago that he really shouldn't say no to Marina Andreiski.

He crept closer to the bucket. It was rather large, made of plastic or rubber, with a white handle. There were smudges that looked brown against the green plastic, but red against the white handle. He took a step closer. He took a breath, and looked into the bucket.

It was full of blood. And. Meat, or. Something meaty, and there was a piece of jewelry, or something, a metallic flash in the red, floating on top.

“What?” His voice was nearly soundless, even in the still room.

The metal thing in the bucket seemed out of place. A little carving, in gold, like an animal's head.

“She really should've stayed out of my business,” Marina said, and she didn't sound like a little girl anymore.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marina finds a new way to control Quentin, and Eliot provides a new sense of comfort.

Quentin stood, frozen, in the center of the strangely empty room. He was too close to the bucket. To Abigail. To what was left of Abigail. He couldn’t move. Marina stalked toward him. She was holding something.

He thought it might be a knife. It flashed and glinted in the light, but he couldn’t look at it. Could only look at her eyes. They were so blue. Like ice. Like drowning. 

“You know what you did wrong?” 

He nodded jerkily.

“Tell me.”

“I, um, I left? Without telling you?”

“Without asking my permission,” she corrected.

“Without asking your permission.” He panted for breath. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t, I didn’t mean …”

“Doesn’t matter what you meant,” she snapped. The thing in her hands flashed in the light. He didn’t dare look down at it. “You disrespected me.”

“I’m sorry, please, I --”

She took another step. “You leave when I say. You sell what I say, to who I say.”

Whom, Quentin’s mind threw up uselessly.

She was closer. He hadn’t noticed it happen, sucked a surprised breath through his nose. She grabbed his arm, ignoring his reflexive flinch and just gripping tighter, started pushing up his sleeve. “If you need to be kept in line, I can arrange that.”

“I don’t, I don’t need to be, I’m sorry, I didn’t --” 

The thing in her hand was a needle, he realized, uselessly, as she stuck him with it. “What, what is that?”

Her eyes were so cold. “Heroin.” Her lip curled in a smile.

She hadn’t depressed the plunger yet. He looked down. The needle pierced the thin skin inside his elbow, ugly metal disappearing neatly into a vein, bright blue he was so pale. The liquid inside the vial was a muddy brown, filled with ominous particles. “Please,” he whispered.

“Say it again.”

“Please.”

“Beg me.”

This he knew how to do. Quentin fell to his knees, arm still held firm in her grip, and fixed his gaze onto the bridge of her nose. “Please, please, don’t, please, I won’t do it again, please.” He was crying. “Please.”

“Ugh, stop, this is getting boring.” Marina huffed out a breath, withdrew the needle. A single red dot of blood welled out of the injection site. Parts of Quentin he hadn’t known he could tense suddenly relaxed. She rolled her eyes, and thrust his arm away so that he fell back onto the carpet. She capped the needle and stuck in into the pocket of her jacket, then took the jacket off and hung it from a hook in the door. She was already unbuttoning her blouse as she approached Quentin again. The pendant she always wore spilled out, its abstract curves glinting in the light.

And Quentin, like an idiot, flinched away from her.

She frowned, but knelt over him, straddling him, pushed him back and he tried looking at the ceiling, tried to lose himself in the cracks and spots in the white paint as she got his cock out. 

Her hand on him felt like nothing, and he felt like nothing, and she worked him a little harder, making a small noise of frustration. But everything he was feeling had balled up in the middle of his chest, like something heavy sitting on the middle of his chest, and he couldn’t get hard.

Marina tried for a minute more, growing visibly more frustrated. The pendant swayed back and forth almost comically, and Quentin squeezed his eyes shut, afraid to keep looking. She slapped him. “Come on, dammit,” she said, tightening her grip until it became painful. Quentin thought she might at least enjoy the pain, and cringed, and whimpered. But she was still frowning, and she let go with a noise of disgust and climbed up to straddle his face.

He tried. He did. He tried, but he couldn’t focus. She rolled her hips impatiently and he did his best, but he felt like he was on autopilot. Distant. Disengaged from what he was doing. He didn’t dare move anything but his tongue, and after a while it was like he was watching someone else eat her out. Quentin wasn’t there. Quentin wasn’t doing these things. Quentin was somewhere in the cracked white ceiling paint, watching it happen.

He didn’t know how much time passed. Eventually she slapped his head, and climbed off. She hadn’t come. Quentin, still feeling sort of dislocated, sat up slowly, watching her pace with a wary shiver working its way down his spine.

She got the needle back out of her coat pocket. Quentin started to hyperventilate. “You’re useless to me like this,” she said. He watched her approach with wide eyes. Started to scoot backward on the scratchy carpet. She grabbed his arm. The sleeve was still pushed up, and even as he started to beg again, stuttering, “No, no, no, please,” she stuck the needle back into his arm and depressed the plunger.

And the world went away.

It was like being in the sea, floating, he was floating away on a rush of euphoria like the cough syrup but stronger, so much stronger, swept under by a wave of it and Marina was still doing things to him but he wasn’t even there. He was somewhere warm, and safe, and her movements seemed slow, and languid, and the things she was doing to him seemed distant, like they were happening to someone else, like they were happening in a dream. She coaxed him erect, and it didn’t even matter. It didn’t touch him. Even the thing living in his belly had gone quiet, content. 

And Quentin realized something very dangerous.

He wanted to feel like this forever.

* * *

She cleaned up, clinical in her movements, when she’d finished. Quentin, sprawled out on the floor, watched her put herself back together, tuck the pendant back beneath her blouse, pull up her skirt to hide her lack of underwear. He rolled his head against the hard floor, wanting to look somewhere else, anywhere else.

She caught the motion, took a step toward him. He was too worn down to flinch. That made her smile, finally. “Be here tomorrow night for your next shot,” she ordered.

He didn’t want a next shot, he didn’t think.

“And Quentin? Try to get high from anyone else, and I’ll kill them too.”

Her smile twisted into a smirk, and Quentin wished he could sink through the floor. To where, it didn’t matter. He just wanted so badly to get away.

But he would be back the next night. What choice did he have?

* * *

Quentin shivered, squinting against the harsh winter sun. The sky was a pale blue dome, just visible between the tall buildings, light bouncing off windows and car bumpers in shards and splinters that made his stomach twist uneasily. He walked slowly, gingerly, down the crowded sidewalk, bumped into a taller man, flinched into a woman’s shoulder, caught himself against the side of a building. A low whine broke out of his aching throat. He wrapped his arms around his middle, pressed them against the ball of sickness in his stomach as if he could hold it down.

He was going to see Eliot. That was the only thing that got his aching legs to move, kept his head on straight. No time to panic. No time to give into the pain. Going to see Eliot.

His heart hammered oddly in his chest, like it was struggling. All that warmth had slipped away, and left behind pain and fear and the certainty that his life was over, the sky was falling, he was a step away from falling into a hole. 

A small, childish part of him thought that if he could just get to Eliot, tell Eliot what had happened, then Eliot would know what to do. And that thought was just enough to keep him going.

“Q?” a woman’s voice said, and Quentin flinched, hard, slamming back against the wall. “Q, what the hell?”

It was Julia. Quentin sucked in a breath, hand pressed to his hammering heart. “Jules, what the fuck?”

He knew what he must look like, but even compared to him Julia looked rough, her eyes bloodshot like she’d been weeping, hair a mess, clothes still expensive and stylish but rumpled, holes in the knees of her leggings. “You look like shit.”

She snorted a laugh. “Right back at you,” she said, stepping closer. “What the hell happened to you?”

Quentin darted a look around. “Not here.”

She sniffed, nodded. “You’re right, come on.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him stumbling after her into the nearest alley. He tugged at her hold on his arm, not wanting to be touched. When she finally let go, he staggered, nearly went down. “Seriously, Q, what the fuck?”

Quentin got himself back up, holding up both hands to ward off any help. “Please, just. Just give me a second.”

Julia ran both hands through her tangled hair, blew out a rough sigh. “Look, we have a line on Reynard. I need to be off the radar for a few days.”

Quentin swallowed thickly. “Yeah, um. That’s, that’s good.”

Her mouth twisted. “Are you, are you okay, Q?” Her hands worked busily, one twisting and rubbing at the other, then switching, but she stared at him, didn’t seem to notice she was doing it. “You have to tell me, are you in too deep? Are you going to be okay until we get back?”

Quentin sniffed. “Yeah, yeah, I mean. It won’t be that different, will it?” He sniffed again. “Just, you know. Go get him.”

Julia pinned him down with one long, level look; he did his best not to cringe. After a long moment, she nodded, touched his shoulder. “I’m taking Kady with me. If you need anything, get in touch with my captain.”

“Fogg?” Quentin asked, voice squeaking a little. “He, um, he really doesn’t like me.”

Julia’s mouth slanted down at one corner. “I know, Q. But you’re my CI, he’ll respect that.”

Confidential Informant. Sounded a lot better than ‘snitch.’ But Quentin knew what he was. “I’ll be okay, Jules. Let me know when you get back.”

“I will.” Her eyes were distant, then. Like part of her was already gone. “Be safe.”

And with that, she disappeared down the alley.

Quentin watched her back until she turned a corner, then started making his way back to the street. Slowly, slowly. Still hugging his middle. 

Once on the street, though, his path was blocked by a man in a suit, curly blond hair and shoulders like a linebacker, standing near a very nice black sedan. “Coldwater?” he asked, his gently-lined face set into a hard expression, like stone.

Quentin nodded hesitantly. “Are you, um, what …”

“Mister Waugh sent me to give you a ride,” the man said, gesturing to the car.

Quentin bent down to look through the tinted windows, and recognized the blonde woman who had driven him before. “Oh, um.” He paused. “How did Eliot know …”

The man shrugged, opened the door for him. “Boss has his ways. Get in.”

Quentin looked up and down the street. It was fairly crowded, as usual. Nothing seemed odd, or out of place. His stomach twisted, and he pressed a hand to it. “Yeah, a ride would be great, thanks.”

Quentin climbed into the car, sliding across the leather seats as if the man might get in after him. But he didn’t, just closing the door with an authoritative clunk and getting into the front passenger seat next to the driver. Quentin felt a twinge of apprehension go through him.

“Want any music?” the woman asked, catching his eyes in the rear view mirror.

“Oh, do you have any Taylor Swift?”

The man snorted, but the woman just smiled, and pushed a button on the dash. The opening notes of “Shake if Off” filled the car, and something in Quentin relaxed. 

The journey went much quicker with the car, and they were pulling up in front of the diner before the song was ever over. Quentin yelled, “Thank you!” over the music, and reached for the door.

“Let me get that,” the man said, rushing to get out before him and open the door.

“Um, thanks.” 

“Mike,” the man said, expression a little friendlier now as he held out a hand.

Quentin took his hand, shook it once. “Quentin.”

“I know,” Mike said, smirking.

“And I’m Victoria,” the driver yelled, “can we go now?”

Mike waved, a small, finger-wiggling gesture, and got back in the car. 

Quentin watched it pull away from the curb and merge into traffic, waved once, then turned to the diner. He didn’t go up the steps immediately. 

He wanted to see Eliot, wanted to see him almost more than he wanted to keep breathing. But he wasn’t sure he wanted Eliot to see him like this. He hid his shaking hands under his armpits, stared at the neon lights tracing out the name of the diner. There were a few kids sitting in the window, watching people go by on the street and laughing with each other. 

He was pretty sure his life had never been that carefree. Maybe before puberty, when he and Julia had played Fillory all day, and he’d loved her the way a friend loves a friend, and before he’d loved her a different way. 

That love had faded, as time passed, as mistakes piled up, as rescue attempts failed. He still owed her, of course, but he didn’t think he loved her anymore. He wasn’t sure if he loved anyone still living. But that thought brought Eliot to mind, not in a direct connection but in an oblique tangent, a figure on the horizon that his shaken mind couldn’t quite bear to look at, and he tried to still his shaking hands as he started up the diner’s front steps.

The door opened before he got to it, and Penny was leaning out and grabbing his elbow, pulling him inside. “Jesus, Coldwater, what’s the hold-up?” he snapped.

Quentin was pretty sure that Penny hated him. “N- nothing, sorry, I, um,” he stammered as Penny steered him past the counter, then shoved him toward Eliot’s table.

“Quentin!” Eliot called across the small space that divided them. “Get over here!”

He looked happy, and Quentin, in spite of the pain that wracked his joints, in spite of the tremor in his limbs, found himself smiling back. 

The table was laden with food, delicate sandwiches and intricate cakes and scones arranged on three-tiered trays. A silver teapot completed the picture, and Quentin’s Anglophile heart skipped a beat. “High tea?” he breathed.

Eliot’s smile turned rather smug. “I thought you might like a change of pace,” he said, and started pouring tea into delicate china cups.

Quentin scooted eagerly into the booth across from Eliot, and accepted his cup of tea with a bashful grin. Eliot appeared charmed, and poured a cup for himself. Willing his hands to stop shaking, Quentin picked up the little silver tongs and used them to pincer up a sugar cube - rustic in shape, brown and white in color - then poured milk from a silver creamer. The small spoons were silver, too, and matched the silver rim around each cup and saucer. 

“Is it okay?” Eliot asked, finally betraying a bit of uncertainty.

Quentin sipped his tea hastily, nearly burning himself. “It’s great,” he sputtered. “Perfect, thank you so much.”

“Try a scone,” Eliot said. 

And he was smiling, and Quentin basked in the glow of it. Eliot pushed a small crockery pot of clotted cream toward Quentin’s plate, and Quentin took the hint, selecting the nearest one, fingers barely trembling as he split it open. The interior was fluffy, still warm; Quentin spread some of the cream with a little silver knife, feeling a tiny thrill. “I always wanted to have high tea,” Quentin confessed.

“Like the Chatwins,” Eliot said knowingly, taking one of the little sandwiches. “Ooh, cucumber. Daddy’s favorite,” he purred, then took a bite.

Quentin’s eyebrows both went up. He refocused on his scone, taking a bite - and it was sweet! He’d been imagining something more like a biscuit - it looked biscuit-like, and the books had never really described the way a scone tasted, just recorded the fact that the Chatwins were eating them at this moment or other.

“Was it everything you dreamed?” Eliot asked, teasing but only a little.

“Mmhmm,” Quentin managed, still chewing. He didn’t dislike the sweetness. It wasn’t what he’d expected, but it was good. He devoured the rest in a few bites, washing it down with sips of sweet, milky tea. “El, thank you. This is … it’s awesome.”

Eliot looked slightly shifty then. “I’d take you to England, if I could.”

Quentin’s eyes got very big. “England?”

Eliot grimaced. “But I really can’t leave the city right now.” He sighed, looked down. “There’s a lot going on, Q.”

Quentin’s hopes, briefly raised, sank back down. “I … that you would even offer is. I. Thank you.”

Eliot smiled, and it was such a gentle expression that Quentin’s hand spasmed around his teacup. “I know how much it means to you.”

Quentin sniffed, looked down at his tea. The liquid rippled. “You don’t have to. I mean. You’re so nice already. You don’t have to give me stuff like this.”

Eliot shrugged. “I can, and I want to.” He reached across the table to take Quentin’s hand, holding it gently. “I want you to be happy.”

Quentin tried to return his smile. Squeezed Eliot’s hand. “You make me happy. Happier than I’ve been, well, ever.”

“That’s … kind of sad, buddy,” Eliot said, his mouth turning down at one corner.

Quentin could only shrug. “My life, um. I’m kind of a depressed super nerd, so.”

Eliot did not try to deny this. “Well, let’s see if we can’t add some sparkle to that drab life of yours. Here, try a sandwich.”

Quentin accepted the delicate square, took a dainty bite. It was sour, and he grimaced. “What is that?”

Eliot frowned, took one for himself. “Oh, liver,” he said, expression clearing up. “For Margo.”

“Wait, Margo’s …?”

“There’s always a door, Quentin.” Margo’s voice carried across the diner, and he turned to watch her approach, eyes wide. “Is it in the wall? The clock?” She was affecting a British accent, her hair in braids and a bright pink corset pushed up her small breasts. Quentin swallowed. As she got closer, she dropped her voice. “My panties?”

Quentin felt his eyes go wide. Her faux serious expression dissolved into a genuine laugh, and she slid onto the bench next to him, bumping him over with her hips. “Ooh, liver,” she said, reaching across the tray in an elegant motion. “Mi favorito.”

Quentin, pressed against the wall, felt a little resentful that Margo had interrupted his time with Eliot. “You like the Fillory books?” he asked, skeptical.

“I loved those books when I was a kid,” Margo said, touching her chest. Quentin worried he’d offended her. “I used to pretend I was the Fillorian ambassador to the Outer Islands.”

Quentin felt like his entire world had shifted, its shape rearranged into something unfamiliar. “Really?”

She smiled, and there was something secretive about it. “Tell anyone and I’ll kill you.”

Across the table, Eliot snickered. Quentin gulped, nodded his agreement. 

Margo rolled her eyes. “Kidding, puppy.”

Part of him did not believe her. He ate another scone in lieu of answering. Margo watched this act of evasion with one brow raised, then reached over and tugged on the ends of his hair where it curled up a bit. “You said you could take it,” she reminded him.

He tilted his head toward the tug, and she cupped his cheek in her hand for a moment, tenderly. Quentin went still. Then she patted his cheek firmly and sat back, and it was like the world started back up. “Yeah,” he said distantly. “This is, I’m, this is fine.”

“Of course you are,” Eliot said warmly, and Quentin very much got the sense that Eliot had been watching their interactions carefully. Quentin smiled at him, feeling a touch shy.

“Ugh, too cute for words,” Margo announced. “Now can we eat? The tea is getting cold.”

Eliot started laughing. Quentin giggled nervously, feeling sort of on the spot but also sort of included. His shoulders twisted together, his neck pulling in defensively. Margo kept exchanging sass with Eliot, but under the table, her hand found Quentin’s, and she squeezed it gently.

* * *

The afternoon was magical, Quentin thought. High tea, the real thing, like the Chatwins, and he’d learned that Margo had liked the books as a kid. Margo! She was so cool that her interest in the books made Quentin feel slightly more cool by association. The transitive properties of coolness. And she’d been nice, for her, teasing him all afternoon but with a hint of affection that made him open like a flower to rain. 

But as it got dark, unable to bear the cravings, he’d made his excuses and walked back to The Safehouse. The streets were darker than usual, some of the lights burned out or flickering. He felt for a moment like he was being watched, but when he looked around, no one was there. Quentin huddled in his hoodie as a sharp wind howled through the canyon-like streets. He felt shaky, and like the world had gotten bigger, too big. Definitely too big for him to handle. His feet dragged, but this time the thing that kept him going was the possibility of release. That sweet, sweet release. 

It really was like the cough syrup. Marina had taken that away from him, threatened him if he went and found more, but she’d replaced it with something so much stronger, so much more immediate. Once Quentin saw her, he could just stop thinking for a while.

And it would be so nice to stop thinking.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot invites Quentin to a Halloween party.

How sustainable could this be?

Quentin tried not to think about it. It wasn’t like he’d had a choice, in starting, and if the seductive warmth was too much to resist ... Well. He wouldn’t be the first to think so.

* * *

Margo came on their outings increasingly often. Quentin wasn’t sure she liked him - thought that she probably didn’t - but she and Eliot so clearly and obviously loved one another with a platonic sort of ferocity that Quentin couldn’t bring himself to object to her presence. It was hard to feel uncomfortable, anyway. He was a little high most of the time and, if he timed his visits with Marina right, neither of them seemed to notice a difference.

One night close to Halloween, they were all out together. They’d had dinner at a new place, not the diner or the club, just a little hipster-y place that Margo swore had the best ramen in the city. For all Quentin knew, she was right, but for him it had just been soup. 

He wasn’t that fond of soup. 

But he’d enjoyed his, something called Pork Katsu, he thought, and they were walking together near the restaurant down a cute little strip of shops, a local bakery, a jewelry shop and art gallery, a place where you could drink wine and make pottery, a cupcake place, and the whole street was lit with twinkling white lights strung between the street lamps and they walked arm in arm, three abreast, down the wide sidewalk with Margo in the middle, and Margo and Eliot were talking and Quentin was happy to listen to them and walk pressed close to Margo’s side, warm and full. He smiled, not necessarily at anything they had said, and Eliot leaned over Margo to kiss Quentin, a quick press of lips to his temple. 

“Stop squashing me!” she complained, smacking Eliot’s chest with the back of her hand - a somewhat awkward maneuver that dragged Eliot’s arm with hers.

“Sorry, Bambi,” Eliot said, though he didn’t sound like he meant it.

“Ooh, chocolate,” Quentin said, catching sight of a fancy looking chocolate shop just down the street. “Can we?”

“Sure thing, sugar,” Eliot said, steering them toward the shop’s door. “Assuming your figure can afford it,” he teased Margo as he opened the door and held it for them.

“Please,” she scoffed, brushing past him. “I have the metabolism of a Jamaican sprinter.”

She had to let go of Quentin’s arm to get through the door, and he followed her in, Eliot catching his sleeve as he allowed the door to swing closed behind him.

Within the shop they were greeted by a single long display case that ran the length of the narrow space. It was surprisingly dark inside the shop, atmospheric lighting drawing attention to small displays of delicate chocolates piled on silver stands above the glass case, their glossy surfaces gleaming in the dim lights. More chocolates crowded the interior of the case, each with a tiny, handwritten label on ivory card stock identifying the specific confection.

The man standing behind the counter was tall and thin, which seemed strange to Quentin for a moment - he’d rather expected the owner of a confectionary to be rotund, jolly. Like Santa. He blinked, redirected his attention to the glass case as Eliot handled the polite greetings and initial questions. The flow of words washed over him, Margo saying something clever and making the two men laugh, soft music playing over it all. He looked around for the speakers, couldn’t see them, shrugged and returned to his perusal of the chocolates. 

The names and flavor combinations were as exotic as the chocolates were shiny, Toasted Coconut Curry, Blood Orange, Merlot with Pate de Fruit, Hazelnut Lemon, Matcha Green Tea, Caramel Lime, Apple Ghost Pepper, Italian Espresso, Lemon Verbena, Port Wine.

He tilted his head, tugged on Eliot’s sleeve and pointed to the curious chocolate. “What’s an apple ghost?” 

Margo snorted. Eliot put an arm around him, pulled him close. “It’s probably ghost pepper, hon, with apple.”

“Oh,” Quentin muttered, feeling inexplicably disappointed. He’d wanted to taste an apple ghost. 

“Want to try one?”

“Sure.”

“Apple ghost,” Margo repeated, laughing sort of quietly to herself - not in a mean way. Quentin didn’t feel like she thought he was dumb or something. Just like she’d found it funny. He leaned into Eliot’s side, and waited as the other two chose an assortment of chocolates. 

The tall, thin man commented on a few of their choices, encouraged them to try holiday themed specials, and they walked out a few minutes later with a large box bagged neatly in brown paper with tissue and ribbons. Eliot carried it, and kept Quentin against his side as they strolled further down the street, and so Margo took Quentin’s other arm, winding her elbow into the crook of his, and they kept walking like that, together.

* * *

It turned out that the ghost pepper was impossibly hot, and that Margo could still laugh at him like she thought he was kind of dumb, and that Eliot would join in if Quentin coughed and begged for water long enough. But then he would get Quentin a glass of milk, and explain patiently why he really didn’t want water, and put an arm around his shoulders while he recovered, and Quentin would feel silly but also, strangely, safe.

* * *

Eliot invited Quentin to a Halloween party at The Cottage, insisting that he’d enjoy it, that it wouldn’t be terribly boring, that if he didn’t like it he could leave. Quentin protested that he hated parties, he was terrible at them, and he didn’t even have a costume, and Eliot had smiled, sort of oddly, and taken that as his answer. 

The night of the party, the air was thin and cold, and Quentin shivered in his custom Martin Chatwin replica questing costume that had shown up in a be-ribboned box on his doorstep. There hadn’t been a note, but remembering Eliot’s odd smile, Quentin had dressed with a trembling sort of excitement that reached even through the heroin. He only wished he had a full-length mirror to admire the cloak and ecru breeches, the quiver and replica bow, before he started the walk to the club. The costume looked really legit, just like the one on the show (and Quentin wondered for just a moment if Eliot had managed to obtain the real thing, in all its 90s glory, from ebay or something), but it wasn’t especially warm, and he made the walk a brisk one.

He tried to catch glimpses of the sky through the lights, past the tall buildings while he walked. Didn’t quite manage it. He thought he saw a snowflake, once, and tugged up the hood on the cloak. He walked through crowds and crowds of people, some of them dressed for the holiday, more in regular clothes, but he didn’t feel too conspicuous. There was a festive air. He had to stop by the strip club for his shot, but it would be busy. He could probably be in and out in no time.

When he got to the Safehouse, the line was out the door. He scooted around to the back entrance, poked his head into Marina’s office. But she wasn’t even there.

Stymied, Quentin stood in the hall for a moment. Not sure what to do next. He scratched at his arm absently.

Poppy came around the corner and stopped, both eyebrows going up. “What are you supposed to be, an elf?”

Quentin looked down at his costume, back up at Poppy. “Um, Martin Chatwin?”

“Who?” Poppy shook her head. “Nevermind, Q-ball. See you later.”

Reaching out one hand, he said, “Wait.” 

“What?” she asked, only a little impatiently.

“Do you, um. Marina has my, um, my shot?” He ducked his head. “But she’s not here, and I, um.”

Poppy sighed. “Oh my god, Q. Buddy. Stop, I know exactly what you need.” She waved her hand. “Come on, follow me.”

Feeling sort of sheepish, he shuffled the reproduction moccasin-like Fillorian footwear over the club’s garish red carpeting as he followed after her to her office. 

“Never figured you for H, buddy.”

Quentin shrugged. “Well, um. Things change, I guess.”

“Yeah they do.” She chuckled. “C’mon, it’s in my desk.”

He followed her into the office. “Where is Marina, anyway?”

“A party, duh.” She moved around the desk to rummage through one of the drawers, pulling out a capped syringe. “Alright, do you do this? Do I do this? What are we doing?”

“Oh, um, I can.” Quentin held his hand out.

Poppy moved as if about to put the syringe in his hand, then stopped. Tilted her head. “Maybe I’d better take care of this.”

Quentin wilted a little. “I, I can, uh. Do it myself, you don’t need to …”

“No, I think I do.” She squinted at him for a moment. “Roll up your sleeve.”

He did, head hanging forward so that his hair hid any expression on his face. 

“What is this costume,” she said judgily, chuckling to herself as she came back around the desk.

“It’s from the Fillory series?”

“Still don’t care, bud.” She took his arm in a fairly gentle grip. “Come on, now. Time for your medicine.”

Quentin tried to hold still, though he was trembling slightly in anticipation, or fear, he couldn’t be sure which. And the way Poppy was talking … did she know what was going on? Did she not know? He couldn’t tell, and that uncertainty was also throwing him off.

The pinch of the needle was almost a relief. Poppy said something else, but he wandered out of her office without really understanding what she was saying. He pulled the sleeve of his questing costume down to his wrist, stroked the fabric a few times. Couldn’t let anyone see, couldn’t let the marks show. 

He should have left the way he’d arrived, through the back, but the ready warmth of the heroin interfered with his judgment and he staggered out onto the floor. Leaving the back rooms for the crowd just around the main stage was like being hit with a sonic wall, a cacophony of ear-splitting music, bone-rattling bass, men yelling and whistling, and the lights - spinners and spotlights and glitter balls and blinking fairy lights, neon and sparkling white and blinking primary colors. It was like staggering through a nightmare. Buffeted by the surging crowd, Quentin bounced between clumps of raucous men, drawing jeers and shoves that propelled him through the club. 

A particularly hard shove sent him to his knees, and Quentin had a very brief panic in anticipation of being crushed to death by horny assholes - but then a pair of legs bracketed him, standing firm against the surging crowd, and Quentin looked up hesitantly to see a hand extended down toward him. 

Quentin reached up, and the hand grabbed his and pulled him to his feet. The hand belonged to an older white man, with a neatly trimmed goatee that looked quite distinguished, and which matched his silvery gray bespoke suit. He looked as out of place in this crowd as Quentin did, though for very different reasons, and he used his broad shoulders to guide Quentin to the nearest wall. 

Slightly sheltering Quentin with his broader frame, the man leaned close and asked, “Are you quite alright?”

It was a British accent, and Quentin peered up at him for a moment, thinking he looked familiar, or sounded familiar. “Uh, yeah, thanks, thank you.”

The man smiled genially, pale blue eyes catching the strobing lights. “On your way, then, lad.”

Leaning weakly against the wall, Quentin watched the man work his way back through the crowd. The feeling of the drug was singing through his veins, and the fresh high made the crowd seem like a surging sea, the men all melding together and shifting, stirring, merging into a uniform mass that moved together before Quentin’s bewildered eyes, and the man in the suit seemed to disappear into that human sea.

Quentin rested against the wall for a while, until the shifting sea of men turned back into a normal nighttime crowd, and he straightened up, shook his head as if to clear it, and slinked along the wall until he could creep out the nearest door.

* * *

It wasn’t too far to Eliot and Margo’s club that Quentin couldn’t walk; but, feeling the wind, he flagged down a cab and asked for the Cottage. 

The driver raised a brow. “Really?”

As if to say, you don’t belong there. Quentin bristled. “I have an invitation.”

“Alright, sure, fella,” the driver muttered, and peeled away from the curb.

Quentin huddled on the slightly sticky faux leather seats in his questing outfit, wishing the cloak were made of wool or fur even, something warmer than this scratchy poly-blend.

Couldn’t mention that to Eliot, he thought. Eliot had done so much, found this costume. Quentin huddled with a little more determination, trying to get the chills out now so he could walk into the Cottage as if warm and comfortable in his own skin.

The driver pulled up roughly half a block from the Cottage. Quentin had wanted to get closer, brow creasing in annoyance as he threw some cash at the driver and clambered out onto the sidewalk. As the cab pulled away, though, he saw why they’d had to park at such a distance.

Usually discreet, the Cottage was lit up like Disney, the entire frontage crowded by limos and private hire cars and those awful stretch SUVs that had come into fashion; and beyond the tangle of vehicles a mob of people trying to get through the front doors, all in costumes that looked lavish, expensive, custom, nothing off the rack or cheap.

Quentin froze before the hubbub, and thought very seriously of going home.

Just as he turned, a hand caught his arm. He flinched, and turned to see a vaguely familiar blond in a Robin Hood costume. “There you are!” the man said. “Mike, remember? Eliot thought you might have trouble getting in, come with me.”

“Mike, right,” Quentin murmured, allowing himself to be tugged through the crowd. With his quarterback shoulders, Mike parted the crowd easily, guiding Quentin past the packed front doors down an alley. The level of sound dropped dramatically, and Quentin shivered. “Are we …?”

“It’s okay, come on,” Mike said, throwing a grin over his shoulder. “Through here.”

Mike led him down an alley, and as they rounded the corner of the building the lights and noise cut off so abruptly it was like someone had flipped a switch. The sudden absence of noise was almost as distressing, though as Quentin adjusted the relative silence was a relief. 

“The boss sure seems to like you,” Mike was saying as he led Quentin further into the alley.

“I hope so,” Quentin said quietly, almost to himself.

Mike tossed him a look over one broad shoulder. “Skinny thing like you,” he said doubtfully.

Quentin, warm in the embrace of his recent shot, didn’t shrink as he might have at any other time. “Eliot wouldn’t like you talking to me like that.”

Instead of getting mad, Mike barked out a sharp laugh. “You’re alright,” he said, pulling open a nondescript door set directly into the blank brick wall. “C’mon, it’s through here.”

Quentin followed, feeling defensive still and sullen, thinking he might tell Eliot about this Mike person after all - but then they were inside, and every previous thought was blown out of his head.

It was music and laughter and mingled voices and then they were in the main room, the alcove curtains gone and the whole space opened up, a beautiful woman in a gold dress singing on the small stage, tables decorated with leaves and pumpkins, elegant candles and stacked trays of confections, and the people, some might have been movie stars, he thought, vaguely recognizable faces moving through crowds of people that looked even richer than the ones stuck waiting outside. This was a serious event, Quentin realized, and he really didn’t belong here. 

Mike said something that Quentin couldn’t hear over the music and the muted roar of a hundred conversations, and then left. Quentin watched him vanish into the crowd with a dull panic starting to grow in his chest. Why had Eliot invited him to this monstrous thing? Why had he come? 

He looked down at his cheap Martin Chatwin costume and wished he had magic, right then, so that he could turn invisible and never have to be seen again.

Hiding in a corner was the next best thing. 

Sipping on a glass of champagne he’d snagged from the nearest tower, Quentin planted his shoulders against the flocked wallpaper and watched the crowd move around him. His eyes were slightly unfocused as he took in the costumes more than the people - some had come in really elaborate, expensive-looking versions of generic costumes, pirates and witches and nurses; others wore perfect replicas of popular TV and movie costumes, superheroes, video game characters, a lot of vaguely _Game of Thrones_ type outfits.

A lot of people he talked to about Fillory assumed he’d be a fan of _Game of Thrones _, too, but he’d always resented its mean-spirited take on realism, preferring the escapist fantasy of the Fillory books. A smaller, pettier part of him also resented its overwhelming popularity, the fact that it got the HBO treatment while Fillory languished in cheap 90s TV hell. As much as he adored the show, he could admit that it was terrible, its low budget and cheesy action things he had to look past in order to enjoy the only available adaptation of his beloved series.__

__A woman in an authentic looking Regency dress carved a broad swath through the crowd with her skirt, nearly knocked into a table. The candles wavered in their holders, but didn’t fall. Wax dripped on the decorative leaves. Quentin had a sudden vision of the candle toppling, the leaves catching fire, the whole place going up in a swift conflagration._ _

__The vision was somewhat attractive._ _

__But then a hand touched his arm, and he was shaken out of his morbid thoughts by Eliot, dressed as a Restoration rake, elegant velvet coat and a long curly wig. He was holding two glasses, and had a mischievous look on his face. “There you are!”_ _

__“Hi,” Quentin breathed, looking up at him._ _

__Eliot put a drink in his hand, and Quentin fumbled for the thin stem of the delicate martini glass. The liquid inside was shimmery, mossy green, and smoking slightly. “What is it?” he asked nervously._ _

__“I call it the Apple Ghost,” Eliot said, lifting one brow._ _

__A surge of affection mingled with embarrassment went through him. “El …”_ _

__“You said you wanted to taste one,” Eliot said cheekily. “Go ahead.”_ _

__Quentin took a sip, and flavor exploded on his tongue, fruit and apple cider and cinnamon and a hint of something herbal and smokey. “Mmm.” He licked his lips. “What is that?”_ _

__“Let’s keep that a secret,” Eliot said, smiling at him warmly. “Want another?”_ _

__Quentin could only smile. “Yes, please.”_ _

__Eliot smiled, and looked him up and down. “Nice costume,” he said, and arched a brow._ _

__“Thanks! Um, thanks,” Quentin stammered, and blushed._ _

__Eliot ducked down and kissed Quentin’s cheek. “Don’t go anywhere.”_ _

__“I, I won’t,” he promised, and watched Eliot disappear back into the crowd._ _

__Part of him still wanted to watch the place burn down, but warmed by the drink and Eliot’s thoughtfulness, he felt content to lean against his bit of wall and wait for Eliot to come back and make this all bearable again._ _


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marina demands more of him, and Quentin's life gets a little worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this is probably the low-point of the story, for Quentin. But hey, things can only get better, right?

Some things could become easy to justify.

* * *

Marina depressed the plunger with a clinical detachment, watching the slightest expressions flicker across his face like a scientist observing the flutters and twitches of cells through a microscope - not interesting cells, boring ones, ones the scientist didn’t particularly care about but needed to record. Quentin felt increasingly distant, himself, from his own life, from his own feelings. Could watch the dirty brown stuff disappear inside of him without a shudder, without fear. 

Removing the needle, Marina wiped away a bead of blood with a cool finger, then caught Quentin’s chin in her hand. Her pendant’s strange curves glittered in the low light. “Remember, you owe me,” she said, and then left.

Quentin watched her leave incuriously, not thinking about how he owed her, or what she might mean by that. The warmth had him. And he couldn’t care about anything else.

Not even when one of her clients came in with a grin that was more like a sneer, and told Quentin to get his damned clothes off. 

Quentin hesitated. She’d never done this before, and for a long frozen moment he was convinced that it wasn’t happening, that she was just threatening him.

But Marina wasn’t in the habit of making empty threats.

Quentin fumbled at the buttons on his shirt.The heroin had him then, and the man, older, and white, though so tanned with the fake orange stuff that his skin resembled a leather purse, started to look more like a monster than a man. He leered and grinned and pulled Quentin’s clothes off when Quentin took too long, and then Quentin was on his knees and begging for mercy he wasn’t going to get.

When it was over, the whole thing distant as a dream, distant as everything had become lately, Quentin staggered home and hid in the shower until he felt clean again. 

It took most of the night. He’d run through all the hot water, and finally pulled himself shivering out of the bathroom wrapped in his only towel. He pulled on a soft pair of sweats with shaking hands, nearly falling over as a foot got caught on the waistband, staggered, caught himself against a wall, shoved his foot in almost angrily. He felt on the edge of tears, but also wrung out, too tired to cry. 

His phone beeped. 

Sniffing, Quentin pulled the sweats up over his bruised thighs, and limped over to check his phone. Its notification light was flashing regularly. He prodded it awake, and moaned - he’d missed three calls from Eliot. No messages. 

The clock widget placed the time at 2:31 AM. Quentin shuffled back over to the pile of cleanish clothes, and pulled on a T-shirt and a hoodie. He gnawed on a raw knuckle for a moment, staring at the phone’s flat screen. He couldn’t call Eliot, not at this time of night. But Eliot didn’t like it when Quentin didn’t answer his phone. 

Shaking with apprehension, Quentin gently touched Eliot’s name on his phone, and then waited as it rang. Once, twice.

“Quentin?” Eliot answered, his voice sharp and eager over the staticky connection. 

Quentin wondered for a moment if he’d been waiting by his phone. “Eliot, I, um, sorry to call, I’m sorry to call so late.”

“I absolutely forbid you to worry about it.”

Quentin took a breath. “O-okay. Sorry.”

“Q.”

“Right, I mean. Um. I saw that you called?”

“I wanted to take you out to dinner.” There were muffled voices in the background, a woman’s voice, another man’s. “Where were you?”

“Oh, I, um. Busy. At work.”

“So busy you couldn’t call?”

“I didn’t see, earlier,” Quentin tried to explain miserably. “I would’ve rather been with you.”

“Likewise, sugar.” There was more noise in the background, then quickly muffled. “Sorry, we can talk now.”

“Were you, um, you had company?”

“Just a business meeting.”

“At two in the morning?” Quentin asked, sitting down slowly on his ragged couch.

“All hours, in my business,” Eliot chuckled. “You should know, working so late.”

“Right,” Quentin huffed. “Yeah, this business. It’s, uh, demanding.”

Eliot’s chuckle blossomed into a full-bellied laugh. When he’d calmed down, he said, “You are the most …” He sighed. “Never mind. How was your night?”

Quentin stretched out, sighed. “Not great.” He was silent for a moment, and Eliot waited patiently. “I don’t like my job,” he admitted.

“Oh, honey. Do you want a different one?”

And Quentin panicked. “No, I didn’t mean, I’m sorry, don’t, don’t tell, my job is fine, it’s great, it’s -”

“Okay, okay,” Eliot said, hushing him. “It’s okay, Quentin. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Sorry,” Quentin whispered. His breathing was still unsteady. He gasped a little, bit his lip. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me, Quentin,” Eliot said, his tone very serious. “I just want to be here for you.”

Quentin sniffled quietly, as he was used to hurting without bothering others. “It means, uh, it means a lot. That you’re there.”

“You mean a lot to me, too,” Eliot said, and he sounded fond. “I want to see you.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Okay, then,” Quentin said. His own voice felt rather far away, as exhaustion rolled over him.

“I’ll send the car,” Eliot said, his voice warm. 

Quentin sagged down on the couch, wriggling until he got comfortable. “What time?” 

Eliot chuckled. “You sound exhausted. Don’t worry, I was thinking after noon.”

“Perfect,” Quentin said, so tired now but also so comforted by Eliot’s voice. He didn’t want to lose that, not for anything. “Hey, um, you didn’t tell me about your day.”

Eliot paused for a moment, as if thinking. Just as Quentin began to worry he’d pushed too much, Eliot started talking. His voice was full of warmth and affection, and Quentin basked in it as he fell into sleep.

* * *

A few days passed like that. Marina asked things of him he’d never thought he’d have to give, but there was Eliot, after. And somehow that made it okay.

For now, at least.

* * *

It was nearly Thanksgiving, now, and bitterly cold. Quentin wasn’t dealing much, anymore. Marina didn’t trust him with product (and to be honest, he knew he couldn’t be trusted with product, he’d snort anything he was given to get the warmth back), but it still left him with time on his hands.

If Eliot noticed, he didn’t say anything, just cleared his days for Quentin, more and more, extending every ounce of attention that Quentin could have wanted. And it got harder and harder to leave that to go see Marina, even if she held the needle.

On this day, Eliot guided him into the sleek black car, and Victoria drove them to an anonymous building, old, beautiful, turn of the century details, but anonymous, and tucking Quentin’s arm into the crook of his elbow guided him inside. There was an unexpected humidity, especially considering the winter-dry interiors of most buildings, and then Eliot pulled Quentin past a man at a desk who merely nodded to them before pushing a button that opened a door and Quentin saw it. A swimming pool, Olympic-sized and so unexpected inside this old building with its Art Deco exterior and rich woodwork that Quentin could only gape in surprise.

“I assume you know how to swim,” Eliot said mischievously. 

“Yeah, I …” Quentin stammered, looking around. The pool was empty, and the room in which it was housed looked like something out of a movie, tall marble columns and arches over which the reflections danced and shimmered. “Why doesn’t it smell?”

“Salt water pool,” Eliot explained. “Much better for the skin.”

“Fancy.” Quentin paused. “I don’t have a suit.”

“There are a few options in the dressing room,” Eliot said, gesturing toward a discrete door to the left. “Pick whichever one you’d like.”

“Um, used?” Quentin asked, wrinkling his nose.

“When are you going to learn to trust me, Coldwater?” Eliot asked, though his tone was light. “All new, all in your size. I promise.”

“Okay,” Quentin said quickly, realizing he’d probably sounded ungrateful. “Sorry.”

“Go on,” Eliot said, patting his ass. “Get changed.”

Quentin ducked into the changing room, an elegant space of dark wood and plush carpeting - which to be honest seemed incredibly wasteful in such a wet space, he thought for a moment. They must have to replace it all the time, he assumed, or perhaps the kind of people who could afford to visit a pool this exclusive were somehow able to keep from splashing around - though he doubted it. Shrugging the matter off, he picked up the first suit in the small pile on the wooden bench that took up most of the space in the changing room. It was slatted, and looked like teak, he thought. The first suit was a Speedo, and he put it back down hastily, grabbing the next. 

He’d shot up with Marina a few hours before, and, still floating easily on the curling warmth, settled on a pair of trunks more quickly than he usually would have managed. They were gray, with navy piping, and fit him perfectly - but like all the suits on offer, nothing was going to cover the marks in his arms. 

Quentin stared at himself in the mirror, at the track marks surprisingly dark on his pale skin. Obvious. He hadn’t been looking at himself, he realized. Not since this started. He rubbed his right hand over his left arm self-consciously. His breath yanked in and out of his lungs. Tore at his throat. He couldn’t go out there like this. Eliot would see. Eliot would know. 

The room seemed dimmer, darker. He staggered back from the suits, stumbled into a bench and fell onto it. 

He couldn’t go out there. He couldn’t do it. Eliot couldn’t know.

Wrapping his arms around his head, he rocked and rocked until he could breathe again. Until he could convince himself that Eliot didn’t have to know. Until he could stand up and get back out there.

However quick Quentin thought he’d been, Eliot was already sitting by the pool in a skimpy pair of briefs, the shimmering light playing over the muscles in his broad shoulders. He turned and smiled when he saw Quentin, and Quentin had to smile back. 

“You’re not dressed,” Eliot said, standing up, still smiling as he reached out a hand.

Quentin took a step back, and Eliot’s hand dropped. “I, um. I forgot to mention, I can’t swim, um.”

Eliot squinted at him. “You can’t swim?”

“N, no, I, uh, sorry, I gotta go,” he stammered, backing up.

“I thought you had the day off?”

“Uh, later!” Quentin called, scampering toward the door, closing it on Eliot’s bewildered expression.

* * *

Not knowing where else to go, Quentin went by The Safehouse. It was after dark by the time he got there, on foot, but not busy yet. He slid into his old booth and watched the dancers move lazily around the spinning poles and wished he were high. It was almost all he wished for anymore.

Someone slid into the booth next to him. He looked over, slowly, on a delay. Recognized one of his old customers. “Hey,” he managed.

“Where have you been, man?” Drew asked, touching his arm.

“I’m not, uh, not selling anymore,” Quentin explained. 

Drew shrugged, smacked Quentin’s arm in a bro-y kind of way, and wandered off to get his fix somewhere else. Quentin watched him go. Knew with bone deep certainty that when Marina finally got tired of him, he wouldn’t be missed.

* * *

Quentin and Eliot spent a few quiet days in the diner after the swimming incident. Eliot didn’t call him out on his ridiculous lie, or even bring up the swimming pool again. 

While he worked on that neverending stack of papers, Quentin curled up by his side, and Eliot stroked his hair with the absent minded care of a lover. Quentin could lose hours that way, feeling safe and held. Like someone cared that he was around.

Other times Eliot had to make tense phone calls, and Quentin would hang out at the counter, with Penny watching over him, bringing him milkshakes and slices of pie every now and then. Penny was a weird one. He’d never returned to his initial prickly behavior, but hadn’t softened any further, maintaining a sort of distant watchfulness over Quentin’s every move. When Quentin showed up later than usual, Penny would gripe at him, make sure he’d eaten, get him an Uber home if it got dark. Quentin really didn’t know what to make of it, but with Julia still out of town he accepted the distant fussing as a substitute for her usual check-ins. 

Another person who seemed to care, even if only for Eliot’s sake, made Quentin feel more real, somehow. Grounded in the world.

One afternoon, just as it was starting to get dark, Quentin was sitting alone at the counter waiting for Eliot to be ready to leave for dinner at the club. Penny ruffled his hair and left for his break, and it was just Quentin and a chocolate malt, and his thoughts, such as they were these days. 

He actively tried to think about very little.

The gaggle of kids in the front window packed up their backpacks in a flurry of noise and left for the evening. There was a man writing on a silver laptop in the corner, and Eliot in the back booth, but otherwise the diner became very empty and still. Quentin thought he could hear the cook in the back clattering around, but maybe he was just imagining it. 

Evening closed in swiftly, the sun vanishing behind skyscrapers and plunging the diner into darkness. Quentin kicked his legs back and forth, tapping the counter, then the legs of his stool. The rhythm was comforting. He’d rather be leaning up against Eliot, but Eliot had said he needed to take care of something, and sent Quentin over to the counter. 

Behind him, the door’s bell jingled. Quentin wondered, briefly, who would take their order, who would serve their food. They really ought to have a second person working the counter.

But then there was a hand on his shoulder, a sudden hard grip like steel.

“Come on,” Pete said, “Marina needs you for something.”

There was only one thing Marina would have him dragged in for, and suddenly Quentin couldn’t face it.

He lunged for the counter. His malt fell to the tiled floor. The glass shattered. His hands scrabbled at worn Formica. Pete had him, hands hard on his shoulder, his waist. He was wailing.

Eliot’s voice broke through the sudden noise. “Quentin?”

“El!”

Eliot took a step forward.

Pete shifted his grip on Quentin, grabbing the scruff of his neck and pulling out a gun. 

Eliot froze. Glanced toward the counter, where Penny usually stood. Raised both hands, waist-high, like he wasn’t aware of doing it. “Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Pete snapped. “Stay out of it.” 

“Q?” 

Quentin pulled and scratched at Pete’s grip on his neck, couldn’t budge it. He watched Eliot watch helplessly as he was dragged out of the safety of the diner into the night, Pete’s gun unwavering.

“Always having to make a scene, you useless little shit.” Pete threw him bodily into the car’s back seat.

Quentin’s head clipped the door frame, jarring him. He huddled on the leather seat, watching Pete stride around the car and fit himself into the driver’s seat with jerky, impatient movements. Pete caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. “No more trouble out of you,” he warned.

Quentin glanced back at the diner as they pulled away. Eliot was standing on the sidewalk outside, phone to his ear, watching them pull away. And he felt a glimmer of hope.

That glimmer sustained him until the car stopped outside of The Safehouse with no sign of any pursuit.

But what had he been thinking, anyway? That Eliot would race after him, save him from all this? 

He could be such an idiot sometimes.

Pete hauled him out of the back seat with a hand around his wrist, so tight he felt his bones creaking. He stumbled, pulled almost off his feet by Pete’s speed. Pulling him through the back door of the club, Pete hauled him into Marina’s office without so much as a moment to catch his breath.

There were three other men in Marina’s office. Quentin thought he recognized one of them, from before. He quailed. Slipped out of Pete’s loosened grip, and fell to the floor.

“Quentin,” Marina drawled, leaning forward. The pendant she always wore spilled over the neckline of her dress, glittering in the light.

Quentin shook his head, staring at the necklace rather than meeting her gaze, following its strange curves until he felt like he was falling into them.

She rolled her eyes extravagantly. “Quentin, come on now.”

He was shaking. Shrank back. The three men watched on, looked interested in ways he didn’t like.

Marina pulled out his dose, tapped one manicured nail against the plastic of the syringe and watched a bubble float up. “Quentin, don’t you want your medicine?”

“N, no,” he stuttered, pushing himself across the floor. Shot a frightened glance at the men. “No, please.”

Marina frowned.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm torn about whether to tag this as noncon. Personally I think that this relationship is coerced, and counts as rape. Quentin doesn't think of it that way, but he also has a history of really bad decision making in this AU. (And in canon if we're honest). I'm leaving the tag up, but let me know if you think it's necessary.


End file.
